Changing His Game (Gamers #1)

by Megan Erickson

  She stuck her tongue out and swirled it once around the head, then smirked. He shoved a pillow under his head so he could see better, then reached down, his thumb at the corner of her mouth, hand on her chin. “Do that again.”

  She lost her smirk at his command, and her eyes glazed. Fuck, she was perfect. One order from him and he bet anything she was getting wet. She stuck out her tongue and swirled it again, slower this time.

  “Take it in your mouth now. Suck me.”

  Her eyes fell closed as she wrapped those lips around his cock and descended on a moan.

  “Look at me.”

  Her eyes popped open, then fell to half mast. Her ass was in the air as she kneeled between his legs and her hips pumped. “Are you touching yourself?”

  She made a sound around his cock and then her hips stopped moving.

  “That’s what I thought. I want to see both of your hands while you suck me. Trust me to take care of you.”

  She brought her one hand in sight and gripped his thigh, while her other hand gripped the base of his shaft. He reached around and tangled his fingers in her hair. “Go on. I want to come in that mouth. I want to see those lips wet with me.”

  She worked him harder, humming a little under her breath. The vibration traveled down his shaft, into his balls, and down his legs.

  His cock disappeared between her lips, her cheeks hollowing as she took him inside her mouth, and he knew she was his oasis. She was life in the desert that had been his existence.

  The orgasm started in his spine, rolling throughout his body. He squeezed her hair once in warning, but she didn’t pull off. She kept working him as he arched his back and came into her mouth. The orgasm was slow moving but it seemed to go on forever, each aftershock as intense as the last. By the time he was finished, he was wrung out and boneless. She took what he had, sucking him until he let go of her hair. Then she let his shaft slip from her mouth. He lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling.

  She crawled up his body and collapsed on top of him. He only had the energy to wrap an arm around her shoulders.

  “Good morning,” she said, her breath hot on his skin.

  “Jesus.”

  “Actually, it’s Marley.”

  He groaned. “I think you might kill me.”

  She propped herself up on his chest. “Can’t keep up with me, old man?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not that much older than you.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  Well, shit, how old was she? “Am I?”

  She laughed. “I’m twenty-seven.”

  “Thirty-two, so you can’t call me old man unless there’s at least a decade between us.” She pressed her lips together and it was his turn to raise an eyebrow. “Did an old man give you two orgasms last night?”

  She blushed and tucked her head into his neck.

  He laughed and ran a hand up her spine. “That’s what I thought.”

  She squirmed on top of him and mumbled something into his neck.

  “What?”

  She raised her head. “I think you’re forgetting something this morning.”

  He frowned and tapped his finger on his lips. “No, I definitely don’t think so.”

  She squirmed again. “Austin…”

  He reached down, slipping his hand over her ass then dipping between her legs. And hell yeah, she was wet.

  He circled her entrance and she squirmed more, pushing against his fingers. He pulled his hand back and smacked her ass. She yelped and then threw back her head and laughed, her hair whipping him in the face.

  He grinned. “How about this? I make us breakfast, then I’ll come back and take my time with you.”

  She cupped his face and rubbed her thumb over his lips. Her face softened. “I like when you smile.”

  He squeezed her hip. “Well, I seem to do it a lot around you.”

  Her gaze met his. “I’m glad.”

  He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t want to move, really. Marley’s weight and heat were pressed into him, her legs straddling one of his. He could have lain there forever staring into her eyes. But he was hungry.

  He gently rolled her off of him and she fell onto the bed on her back, her curls in a mass around her head. She smiled up at him and he pressed a kiss between her breasts. “I’m going to go hunt around your kitchen for breakfast.”

  “I can come out, ya know.” She smacked him lightly on the arm.

  He shook his head. “Nope, you stay in bed.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said sternly.

  He stood at the end of the bed and stretched. “Don’t get fresh.”

  She stuck out her tongue at him.

  Austin tugged on his boxer briefs and made his way out to the kitchen. Marley seemed to have a lot of refrigerated cookie dough and not much else. He managed to scrounge up some eggs, bread for toast, and strawberries that were about a day away from going bad.

  After making the coffee, he popped the bread in the toaster and cracked some eggs into a pan to scramble. While the eggs were cooking, he sliced up the strawberries.

  He’d been cooking for himself since he was tall enough to reach the knobs on the stove. His dad worked odd hours and even when he was home, preferred takeout. Austin became quite adept at throwing an odd assortment of ingredients together—whatever they had on hand or was on sale at the store—into something quite edible. He still preferred to cook. Although he preferred his kitchen at his house. He’d have to take Marley there sometime and cook her dinner.

  The thought of bringing Marley to his house rolled around in his brain and settled into his gut.

  A woman. At his place.

  But Marley wasn’t any woman. She was Marley, and after last night, it was clear that this was getting big, really big. This wasn’t just about fulfilling Marley’s fantasies anymore, was it? That was what he’d been telling himself, that this was all for her, but it was for him, too. That was clear now.

  He still hadn’t told her about the biggest parts of his life. He’d let this go on and now there was no easy separation, no way to get out of this without her finding out the truth.

  He paused, his knife mid-slice on a strawberry. If he sold Gamers, though, before he told her, maybe it would lessen the blow. And then he’d no longer be involved in her job in any way. She’d probably still throw things and yell at him, but there could be forgiveness. He hoped.

  Because Marley was worth holding on to. And he was a selfish bastard for wanting to keep her.

  He dropped the strawberries into a bowl and began to scramble the eggs.

  The date had been great, better than great. Everything about Marley turned him on, from her humor, to her body, to the way she responded to him, with her parted lips and red cheeks.

  The way she trusted him. She deserved some of that trust back. But damn, it was hard for Austin to do that. As soon as he trusted people, let them in, they had the power to hurt him. And Marley… she could crush him, he knew. She had more power than she thought. Maybe all of it.

  He slipped the finished eggs onto two plates, found a tray in a lower cabinet, and placed everything—along with two coffees—on it.

  When he walked back into the bedroom with the loaded tray, Marley was on the bed, reading glasses perched on her nose, silk robe hanging loosely on her shoulders.

  The robe was blue silk.

  He was hard again already.

  She looked up from the ereader in her hands then set it aside on her nightstand, along with the glasses. She smiled when she saw the food. “Wow, I’m really impressed.”

  He shrugged. A monkey could make scrambled eggs.

  “I can’t make scrambled eggs,” Marley muttered, gaze on the tray. “I always manage to burn them.”

  He didn’t voice his monkey-chef opinion.

  He motioned for her to sit back against the pillows on the headboard, then handed her a plate of eggs with a side of strawberries and her steaming cup of coffee. She set her mug on her nightstand
and shoved a forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth. She moaned around the bite.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Are they satisfactory?”

  She nodded and forked in another bite. “Could use ketchup though,” she mumbled, her mouth full.

  Despite her manners, she made a beautiful picture. Cross-legged on her bed, hair wild, face fresh of makeup. Her robe gapped at the top, so he saw the top swell of a breast. He looked away and focused on his food.

  “So,” he stabbed a strawberry and put it in his mouth. “What changed your mind? About us? I was surprised when I got that email from you.”

  She took a sip of her coffee. “Well, I realized I’d denied myself for a lot of years. I’d worked really hard, and I don’t regret it. But you…” She licked her lips and blushed. “You make me feel a way I’m not sure I’ve ever felt.” Her eyes darted up to meet his, widening a little. “I mean, I know we just had one date, I’m not—”

  He held a hand up to stop her. “I didn’t take you out with the intention of only one date. And I’d say it’s going pretty well, right?”

  Her lips stretched into a smile. “Yeah, I would say so. Well, anyway, I decided I was just being paranoid. You’re not a coworker, and there are no rules against that anyway. And while you might be a distraction, I’m a big girl, and I can handle it.”

  The weight of his lie sat in his stomach along with his eggs and coffee. He should tell her, come clean.

  He looked down at his plate and picked at a large chunk of egg. “What’s your background before you were hired at Gamers?” He had no involvement in the hiring of the employees, so he’d never seen her résumé.

  She talked about her journalism days and told a funny story about covering a senior home’s Olympics competition. Marley was engaging when she talked, her voice full of inflection, her hands flying as she demonstrated an event.

  “So. I don’t know much about you,” she said, when she was finished talking.

  He set his fork on his plate and leaned back against the pillows on the headboard, feet crossed at the ankles. “No, I guess you don’t.”

  She watched him, her gaze on his face. “I get the sense you’re private.”

  He pressed his lips together. “That sense would be absolutely correct.”

  She blinked, and he didn’t miss the disappointment that flashed over her face.

  This hurt, a lot. Opening up wasn’t something he did. It felt unnatural. He’d learned at a young age how to hide the fact that his family didn’t have a lot of money so he wasn’t teased at school. It was embarrassing if other people found out how little his father paid attention to him.

  But Grant was right. His need to keep everyone out was turning him into a lonely man, and it wasn’t comforting anymore.

  So he took a deep breath and ignored the barbs that accompanied the words as they left his mouth. As he spoke, he stared at the blank screen of the TV on Marley’s dresser. “My…uh…mother left shortly after I was born. I’m not sure where she is. Or if she’s alive. So my father raised me. We didn’t have a lot of money and he was gone a lot, working odd hours as a shift supervisor at a warehouse.”

  He waved his hand toward his plate. “It’s why I can cook. I earned an academic scholarship to attend MIT, and for the rest of my tuition I took out loans. It was rough. I…” He glanced at Marley now. Her attention was rapt. “I made some investments that paid off.”

  He didn’t mention one of those investments was making and selling Aric’s Revenge to a large software developer. Or starting Gamers. “And it was fine, until I found out my father was taking money from me. He’d had access to my accounts and I’d been helping him out but he…well, I guess he thought I should be helping him more. But he didn’t ask, he just took, and I didn’t realize until my tuition check bounced.”

  “Oh, Austin,” Marley said, her voice not full of sympathy, really, but anger. For him.

  “So, I cut him off. I was twenty-one and I thought I was hot shit. We didn’t speak after that. He was stubborn as hell, and I inherited that. He died of pancreatic cancer a couple of years ago. I hadn’t spoken to him since college.”

  She shifted closer now, and slipped her hand into his. “I’m really sorry.”

  He blew out a breath, and with it came a chuckle, which turned into a full on fit of laughter. Marley stared at him like he was crazy. He probably was a little crazy. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I just…I thought that was going to be a lot harder than it was. To say all that. To open up. I don’t even talk to my best friend about it much but I…” He pulled her closer until she was pressed against his side. He cupped her cheek. “I wanted to give you something back, for all you’ve given me, so there you go.”

  He hadn’t given her everything, but damn, this was new. Baby steps.

  She smiled and leaned into his touch. “Thank you for that. For giving that to me. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry that things happened the way they did for you and your father.”

  He rubbed a thumb over her bottom lip. “Yeah, well, it is what it is.”

  With a kiss to her forehead, he rolled off the bed and grabbed their plates. “I’ll do the dishes and be right back.”

  She stretched. “This is ridiculous. I’ve been a bum. I can do the dishes.”

  “Just relax.” He was already walking out the door of the bedroom.

  After he loaded the dishwasher and cleaned up from breakfast, he made his way back to the bedroom. He heard the familiar soundtrack of Aric’s Revenge and stopped in the hallway. He laid a hand on the wall and closed his eyes. He knew he was going to have to tell her. And he would. One day. But he’d done enough sharing for now, and he’d rather spend the rest of their time today with his mouth attached to various parts of her body.

  He walked in and spotted her propped against the headboard, knees bent, eyes on the TV. She looked up. “Oh hey, sorry. I beat this game way back when it came out but the movie made me nostalgic so I’m playing it again.” She pressed the button to save her game.

  He put a knee to the bed and pushed her forward so he could sit behind her, then he rested her back against his chest. “You don’t have to stop.” He ran his fingers up and down her thighs.

  “But—”

  He spread her legs gently, hooking her knees over his thighs, so she was open in front of him, displayed for him.

  “Austin,” she whispered, almost dropping the controller.

  He pressed a kiss to her neck. “Keep playing.”

  He untied her robe, and the sound of the silk slipping against itself sent a shot of pleasure right to his cock where it rested against her lower back.

  She squirmed, and he flicked his eyes to the screen. Aric ran into a wall and she cursed under her breath. He smiled and spread the edges of her robe apart.

  Her breasts rose and fell with her breaths. Her nipples were red and hard. He held one breast in each hand, rubbing his thumbs over the buds.

  “I-I can’t—”

  “Aric has to get into the castle,” he murmured. “You can’t stop playing now.”

  She made a sound in the back of her throat, and he smiled into her neck. He loved her breasts. They were high and full. No matter what she wore, the swells under her clothes never ceased to draw his attention.

  Her stomach tensed as his one hand left a breast and continued downward. On the TV, Aric was searching the stone walls for a way inside the castle.

  He slipped a hand down further, into the small bit of pubic hair she kept neatly trimmed. She whimpered and accidentally slashed Aric’s sword against the rocks.

  “Now now,” he said, dipping lower to tap lightly on her clit. “Can’t go hacking away without finding the right spot first. The way inside.”

  “Jesus,” she swore, her hands trembling as they held the remote.

  He placed his lips at her ear as she continued around the back of the castle, feeling the walls for loose stones. “It can be tricky. Not everyone can find it. Do you know where it is?”
>
  She licked her lips and opened her mouth. No sound came out at first, and when her voice finally did, it was in a rush. “Between the two columns at the far left corner.”

  He dipped lower into her folds, taking her wetness and spreading it around.

  “Very good,” he said. “But you can’t just barge in, right? You have to work the stones free gently.”

  She was breathing hard now, her breasts heaving. Her legs clenched around his. The buttons on the remote clicked as Marley entered in a combination. On the screen, Aric took the hilt of his sword and began to tap away at a stone. Dust began to seep out, falling at his booted feet. Austin remembered designing that area of the wall. The weak stone was only noticeable by a small clump of slightly darker gray pixels right in the center.

  “There you go,” Austin said, swirling Marley’s clit. Her hips began to rock. “Take your time. There’s no rush.”

  Marley swallowed and a bead of sweat dripped down her neck. Austin licked it up.

  He lowered his hand, circling the wetness around her entrance as the dust built up a small pile at Aric’s feet. The stone began to push into the wall.

  “A little bit more,” Austin said.

  Marley’s arms were coated in goose bumps, as she jammed her thumb over and over again on the button at the top of the controller. Aric continued to slam the hilt of his sword on the stone.

  Then the telltale sound of grinding as the stone slid inside, and Austin slid his finger home.

  She gasped and dropped the controller, gripping Austin’s wrist as he worked her with his fingers. “Oh my God,” she moaned, her hips rocking harder.

  He watched his hand moving between the silk edges of her robe. “So beautiful, Marley. Fuck, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “More,” she pleaded.

  He smiled and nodded to the controller between her legs. “Pick it up.”

  “Ausssstin.”

  “Pick it up. You know Bauer’s guards will be coming any minute. Aric has to take them out.”

  “You gotta be kidding me right now,” she said through gritted teeth, her fingernails digging into his wrist.