The Jock

by Jaid Black

  How many times had he sat at that very kitchen table, eatin’ one of Willy’s homemade chocolate chip cookies while Verlene bandaged up the latest scrape he’d acquired on his knee? How many evenings had he spent at that same table playing cards and drinking sodas with Harry while Gwen sprawled out on the floor below them humming as she colored in her Strawberry Shortcake coloring book?

  Sam sighed as he looked around and let the memories of his childhood pour over him. Gwen. His thoughts always returned to Gwen. And then those thoughts only made him realize how much time he’d wasted, how many years had truly gone by.

  What a fool he’d been to stay away so long. Gwen was obviously not enamored of him anymore. Every year, every day he’d been away from the fray had apparently helped her to forget him a little bit more and let go of the past they shared. Only now here he was, wanting her to do anything except to forget about him.

  It wasn’t that Gwen was treating Sam coldly or even being aloof. Not so. All through supper she’d been her usual self, laughing freely, telling amusing stories about her shoot at Vantry Sportswear, smiling at him from across the dinner table, those adorable dimples popping out.

  The problem lay in what Cupcake wasn’t doing. Namely, that she wasn’t gazing at him with stars in her eyes the way she used to. Of course, Gwen wasn’t sixteen anymore. She was now a full-grown, mature, sophisticated woman. This business of strategy was damned depressing. Sam had no idea what his next move should be.

  Should he lay his cards out on the table and tell Gwen straight up that he’d like to take her out on a date? Or should he continue to play it cool and wait to see if she came to him? Lord have mercy—strategies were a lot easier to implement on the baseball field.

  “Who died?”

  Sam started at the sound of that familiar voice. He glanced quickly at her before turning around to open the refrigerator door. He cleared his throat. “What do you mean by that, Gwen?”

  Gwenyth shrugged her shoulders as she watched Sam fiddle around with the condiments in his hand. “When I first walked in here you had this really sad look on your face.” She cocked her head and studied him. “Don’t tell me your contract negotiations went badly?”

  I wish that was my worst problem, Cupcake. “Of course not.” Sam placed the A-1 sauce next to the ketchup then swung around to look at her. “Went great. No complaints there.”

  She bit her lip. “I’m glad.”

  He shuffled on his feet. “Me too.”

  They studied each other in silence for a long moment, then both started to speak at the same time. “Sam,” Gwen said. “Gwen,” Sam began. They looked at each other and burst out laughing.

  After that, the conversation flowed freely between them. They stood there, just the two of them, reminiscing about old times and catching each other up on what they’d missed in the decade since they’d last seen one another.

  “After college, I turned down an offer from Vogue to form Jones & Jones with Grandmama.” She smiled owlishly. “It turned out to be the right decision. I couldn’t be happier any place else than I am at Jones & Jones.”

  Sam snorted, chuckling slightly. “Can’t blame you there, Cupcake. I’m sure workin’ for yourself holds a lot of advantages over workin’ for someone else. I can’t say I’d mind that at all.”

  Gwenyth shrugged elegantly. “It has its downsides too. Knowing that people are counting on you to not bounce their paychecks carries a lot of pressure on Grandmama and myself to accumulate new accounts.” She grinned. “Luckily we only have three employees at the moment and Grandmama’s a natural born businesswoman if ever there was one.”

  Sam laughed. It felt so good talking to Gwen like this, being near her, getting to know her all over again. “I can believe that about Verlene Jones. The woman’s as graceful as a southern swan, but as sharp as a serrated blade.”

  A trill of Gwen’s laughter peeled through the kitchen. It occurred to Sam that church bells at mass on Christmas Eve couldn’t have sounded prettier. “True.” She gestured toward him animatedly. “And what about you? Do you like playing for the New England Crusaders?”

  Sam scratched his chin as he considered the answer to that question. “Yes and no.”

  “Oh?”

  He smiled impishly at Gwen. “I’ve been paid well to do something I’ve had a helluva good time doin’. How can I complain?”

  Gwen crossed her arms over her breasts and notched a tawny eyebrow. “I sense a but coming on here.”

  Sam shrugged. “Please don’t go repeatin’ this to anybody else because I’m not quite ready to go public with it, but I’ve decided to retire when this last contract is up.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not like a lot of ballplayers out there, Cupcake. I can accept the fact that I’m aging, that I’m not as fast as I used to be, that my injuries take longer to heal than they did even two or three years ago.”

  “You can accept retiring at thirty-one?”

  “Now hold on!” Sam grinned. “I just signed another four year contract, if you will recall. Make that thirty-five, Cupcake. Thirty-five.”

  Gwenyth laughed. “Okay, thirty-five. And then what will you do?” Thinking better of it, she held up a hand to forestall his answering that question. “Never mind. I suspect I know what you’ll do.”

  “You know me so well, do you now?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Sam inclined his head toward Gwen in a teasing gesture of faux mockery. “Then by all means, Gwenyth Marie, tell me.”

  Gwenyth nibbled on her bottom lip briefly. Finally, she looked up at him with a shrug and chuckled. “Whatever it is, it will have to do with anthropology or archeology.”

  Damn. She did know him so well. Sam felt something in the vicinity of his heart turn over. “Yeah well…” He swallowed faintly. “I think maybe you’re right.”

  Harry wandered in a few minutes later, announcing that he had to go home to work on his speech for the campaign dinner, but would pick Sam up for breakfast the following morning. He offered to let his old pal crash at his apartment, but Sam declined, genuinely looking forward to spending some time catching up with Willy and Verlene.

  Harry stayed and chatted for a while, distracted from his plans by a shared sense of nostalgia. The reminiscing felt amazingly good to all of them.

  Twenty minutes later, however reluctantly, Harry clapped Sam affectionately on the back. “I’ll see you tomorrow, old man.” With that departing potshot, he kissed Gwenyth on the cheek, made his good-byes to his retiring grandparents, and strolled out the back door whistling.

  Sam and Gwenyth were alone again.

  Both of them felt the awkward silence caused by Harry’s abrupt leave-taking fall between them like a thick cloud of awareness. It was as tense as it had been when she’d first come upon Sam in the kitchen after supper. Only this time it was interwoven with a sexual awareness. Gwenyth cleared her throat and grinned at Sam. He shuffled nervously and grinned back.

  Gwenyth placed her hands in the back pockets of her cutoffs and rocked back and forth on her heels. “Sam, I…” She blew out a breath and shrugged her shoulders in a gesture meant to be cavalier, but she knew it wasn’t.

  Sam arched an inquisitive brow. He inclined his head down to Gwenyth, prodding her to finish her thought. “Go on Gwen. What were you about to say?”

  Gwenyth took a deep breath and expelled it daintily. “I just wanted to say that I’m really glad you came back.” She shrugged her hands out of her back pockets and splayed them at her sides. “We’ve all missed you a lot, Sam.”

  Sam swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Maybe things weren’t as hopeless as he’d first thought. Maybe he’d have Gwen yet. “Cupcake, I…”

  The phone rang, breaking both of them out of the fleeting experience of intimacy they’d just shared. Gwenyth threw him an apologetic look and swung around to answer the phone. Sam studied her sweet backside as she padded away from him and toward the wall where the onl
y non-portable phone left in the house had resided for at least twenty years. “Hello? Oh hi, Trevor.”

  Trevor? Who the hell is Trevor?

  “No, I haven’t forgotten. I’m sorry I haven’t called you back, but I’ve been real busy.”

  Who the hell is Trevor?

  “Yeah. That will be fine. Reservations are for eight o’clock? Okay, pick me up around seven-thirty then.”

  Pick her up? I. Don’t. Think. So.

  “Great. I’ll see you then.”

  Over my dead, mutilated, decapitated body.

  “Okay. Take care now. Goodbye, Trevor.”

  I’m losing it here. I’m losing it big time!

  “Who is Trevor?” Sam grimaced at his own words, knowing at once that his tone of voice had betrayed him. He’d asked that question far from nonchalantly. He’d sounded more like a possessive husband acting as though he’d caught his wife in the act of cheating on him. Struggling to maintain his dignity, he asked in a calmer voice, “who is Trevor, Gwen?”

  Gwenyth threw him a wide-eyed look, as though she had forgotten he was standing there. Sam released a mental sigh. Perhaps she hadn’t picked up on his telltale jealousy after all. “He’s the guy I’ve been dating.”

  On the other hand, there was nothing wrong with a little jealousy now and again. “The what?”

  Gwenyth’s wide jade eyes rounded all the more. “The guy I’ve been dating.”

  “You’ve been datin’ a guy?”

  Her green orbs narrowed defensively. “You know Sam, there are men on this planet who find me attractive.” She thrust her balled hands indignantly to her hips. “Not every guy in the universe prefers emaciated women like Stacy to women shaped like real women!”

  Sam’s nostrils flared. He stalked toward her slowly, causing Gwenyth to gulp. Perhaps she shouldn’t have mentioned his ex-wife.

  “You think I don’t know that?” Sam backed her up against the nearest wall and smacked his hands around either side of her head. “You think I don’t know just how good you look to a guy?”

  Gwenyth’s eyes widened considerably. “Well, I…uh…well…what exactly are you saying here, Sam?”

  “What I’m sayin’,” he growled as he reached for Gwenyth’s topknot to hold her securely in place, “is this.”

  Sam crushed his mouth to Gwenyth’s in a searing kiss that robbed both of them of breath. All thoughts of strategy and calmly luring the doe toward him flew out the window along with his temper. Sam’s kiss was punishing and possessive, desperate and provocative all at once.

  Gwenyth yelped in surprise, then sighed in acquiescence. Twining her hands around Sam’s neck, she gave herself up to a lifetime of penned up hopes and longings. She met his kiss, passion for passion. Sam’s lips on hers felt hot and hard, fairly robbing her of sanity and chasing away any coherent thought. All Gwenyth could do was feel.

  Sam moaned into her throat, then deepened the kiss in a way he’d been wanting to since he’d first laid eyes on Cupcake this afternoon. He forcefully slipped his tongue into her mouth, then bit back a groan when Gwenyth enthusiastically accepted him inside of her. Their tongues twined and twirled around each other for a long moment, both of them releasing every ounce of passion that had been built up and stored away these past years.

  Sam couldn’t believe how hot Gwenyth was making him. And she had to know it too. His erection was pressed against her belly in a way that made denial impossible. Not that he wanted to deny it. Hell, he wanted to have her here and now.

  Without breaking their kiss, Sam released his hold on Gwenyth’s face and drew his hands downward to cup her bottom. The lusciously rounded orbs felt so good in his palms, just the perfect size… as if they’d been made especially for him to knead and caress.

  Lifting Gwenyth up against his arousal, Sam groaned into her mouth when she locked her knees around his waist. He pinned her fully against the wall, slowly grinding his erection into her hips in a way that left nothing about his intentions to the imagination.

  Gwenyth moaned and gave it right back to him. She continued to stroke his tongue with her own, while at the same time nudging his arousal with the cleft of her womanhood. Though she was wearing cutoffs, her clitoris ached with need as if there was no barrier between them at all.

  Time stood still for Sam and Gwenyth as they played and teased, touched and kneaded, each of their bodies making promises of shared passion to the other. It was only when Sam began unzipping her jeans shorts and tried to pull them down that reality began to intrude for both of them.

  Gwenyth released a surprised little shriek. Sam’s eyes rounded. As if shocked by his own actions in Verlene’s and Willy’s home, he tore his mouth away from Gwenyth’s and, panting heavily, slowly lowered her to the ground. Lord have mercy, he felt as out of control as a bull in full rut. They could have been walked in on at any time.

  Gwenyth straightened immediately, though her labored breathing gave away the fact that she was still as turned on as Sam was. When she finished zipping up her shorts and slicking her hair back with her hands, she turned and looked up at Sam.

  Sam’s gaze raked possessively over her as he took in Gwenyth’s signs of arousal.

  Flushed face. Heavy breathing. Erect nipples…

  Sam reached up and brushed the pad of his thumb over one of Gwenyth’s aroused nipples, right through her shirt. When she sucked in her breath, he peered into her eyes, meeting her gaze.

  Trailing his hand under the jersey, Sam’s fingers made a searing path up Gwenyth’s belly and toward her breast. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath as his thumb and forefinger latched onto a nipple and stroked it slowly from base to peak, over and over again. Her clit pulsed, eliciting a small moan from her.

  Heady from her reaction, Sam brought his other hand under the jersey to do the same with Gwenyth’s other nipple. She whimpered, causing him to inwardly smile with knowing satisfaction.

  The situation was definitely not hopeless.

  Sam continued to fondle Gwenyth’s breasts as her breathing grew more and more sporadic. He had her just where he wanted her and there was no place on earth where he’d have rather been. When she opened her eyes to gaze into his, he kissed Gwenyth gently on the forehead. He met her wide-eyed stare as he stroked her nipples, over and over, sending her into a haze of longing and need.

  But he wouldn’t take her—couldn’t take her—not here, not like this. Sam released his hold on Gwenyth’s breasts and kissed her softly on the lips. “Get rid of Trevor,” he quietly demanded. Sam swept his tongue inside of her mouth one last time, then pulled away. “Get rid of him, baby.”

  And with that, he walked away.

  Gwenyth closed her eyes and practiced a little deep breathing. She stumbled toward the kitchen table and fell into the closest chair. She exhaled on a grin.

  Good grief. That had been better than in all of her fantasies combined.

  Chapter 6

  With the new day dawned sanity. And a hell of a lot of confusion. Gwenyth still had a hard time believing that Sam had kissed her and felt her up the way he had last night after dinner. And worse yet, she had reacted to him like some wanton woman, no doubt making her seem as easy as the gaggle of other groupies who were always throwing their sorry selves at the great Sam Tremont.

  Well none of that for Gwenyth Marie Jones. No sir. Not when she had dreamed and hoped and wished on every shooting star she could find since childhood that she would one day mean a hell of a lot more to Sam than a little sister much less an easy lay.

  If Grandmama Verlene had found out about last night’s insane moment of passion, she would have inclined her elegant head and said, “make a man work for it, sugar. The harder he has to work to lay claim to you, the more he’ll want you in the end.”

  Granddad Willy would harrumph and disagree. He’d insist that the best way to be claimed by a man like Sam was to do the claiming yourself. “When I was a young gun, your Grandmama came at me like gangbusters,” he would insist, “made
me flee in terror from the fear of impending matrimony ‘til I was too tuckered out to run anymore.”

  Harry would smile and say simply, “it’s your life, Sis. I’m behind you no matter what.”

  Candy would say, “No shit? Jesus, Gwen! Why didn’t you fuck him?”

  Gwenyth wasn’t at all certain she wanted to listen to anyone’s sage advice, or even her big brother’s lack thereof. So for the next few days, she closeted herself away from family and friends, trying her hardest to figure out what she was going to do.

  She spent her days in the park taking pictures of children playing and ducks squawking. She watched idly as lovers jogged side by side around the grassy slopes, seeing to it that their amour remained trendily in shape. This was Hyde Park after all. Fitness and superficial looks were all that mattered in this tiny, prosperous section of Tampa. Growing up, she herself was the only pudgy female in a hundred yard radius she could ever remember encountering.

  While Gwenyth was busy getting her thoughts and feelings in check, Sam was busy fuming. He had called her apartment four times and left four messages on her answering service. The first message had been sweet, with his insisting that he couldn’t wait to see her again and would she please call him back when she got home.

  The second message was less sweet, more preemptory than anything, but it was still Sam at his—almost—nicest. The third and fourth messages were downright belligerent. “Where the hell are you, Gwenyth Marie? Call me, damn it!” Click. And then, “I’m gettin’ seriously pissed off, Gwen. I’m going to come over there if I don’t hear from you in the next ten minutes!” Click.

  So now Gwenyth sat in a reclining chair near the telephone, biting her lip and wavering back and forth on whether or not she should call Sam back. Verlene would say that Sam’s attitude was a good sign. Gwenyth, on the other hand, wasn’t at all positive she had what it took to stand her ground with an angry, virile man like Sam Tremont. Nope. Playing the coward and leaving town was more in tune with her state of mind.