Playing To Win: The Complete King Brothers Collection (A Contemporary Romance Box Set)

by Teagan Kade

  She swallows hard.

  I can’t keep my fucking hands off her.

  I slide a hand between her legs and under her skirt, hooking the crotch of her panties to the side. My index finger runs easily into her heat. “Hmm, right again.”

  I hold her by the back of the neck and bring her to my mouth, the warmth and wetness there a perfect mirror of the space between her legs.

  The wheel reaches its apex and starts to fall. Erin gasps against my lips as my finger runs deeper, her pussy pulsing around it, my thumb flattening out on her clit.

  Her thighs fall apart, her shoulders relaxing as I work. She’s rising off the seat, shifting to meet my hand.

  There’s a kind of panel in front of us, the carriage moaning, metal-on-metal as it swings in the night air. We’re exposed but we’re high enough to be out of sight, the power flickering on and off momentarily as we pass the top and start to come down.

  I add another finger, turning my wrist to curl the pressure against the roof of her sex. Instantly, she breaks from the kiss, her head falling back and legs spreading wide. She’s panting hard, pulling in each breath with a haunting rattle.

  My ass the g-spot doesn’t exist.

  I want to prolong her pleasure, draw it out and on until she cannot take a second more. Watching her face, her lips parted and eyes closed, I could well come before she does.

  I place my lips against her ear, using a come-hither motion to pad the interior of her pussy, enjoying the way it constricts and tightens around my fingers.

  The Ferris wheel dips at the bottom and starts to rise again. The operator’s too busy on his phone to notice anything untoward. “I want you to come for me,” I tell Erin. “Can you do that?”

  She nods, lost in the sensation.

  I lower my voice further, whispering against the breeze. “Come all over my fingers, baby.” I let my pinkie slide down between her ass cheeks, let it sit there between her buttocks.

  She snaps forward, eyes wide, when I start to add pressure.

  “Come,” I repeat, the tip of my pinkie sliding into her ass. “I want to feel it.”

  We approach the top of the wheel again, sound fading away, the stars slathered loosely across the sky above. The temperature drops. Given her reaction, the way her feet have planted themselves firmly against the checker-plate floor, I’m guessing her ass is virgin territory. The thought of taking it later is almost too much, but I continue to whisper, telling her how much I wish I was inside her — in her pussy, her mouth, her ass.

  My words undo her. She stops completely, mouth caught in an open oval, frozen in time as we hit the apex, the lights flickering off and her climax crashing into her.

  Her thighs snap closed, crushing my fingers inside her, her entire body pulling inwards as she cries out into the cold, night air. I don’t stop, even when she begs for release, gasping and struggling to breathe, thrashing and moaning in the seat like a wild animal. She’s completely lost, calm and order playing second to her climax.

  *

  I can still feel her thrumming as we walk around the carnival.

  “Everyone’s a winner!” comes a call from our left.

  “Hungry?” I ask.

  She pulls tight against my side, squeezes my hand. “After that? I’m famished.”

  I guide us to a hot dog stand and order two dogs, Erin chiming in for extra onion.

  “Brave,” I laugh, taking the dogs, Erin taking the Cokes. We sit on a makeshift picnic table near the stand, a red-and-white umbrella overhead turning slowly in the breeze.

  Erin chows down, wiping sauce from her face as she goes. It’s so fucking cute watching her — eating like this is her last meal.

  “What?” she asks, her mouth full, a strand of wavy caramel-tinted hair hanging down to the table. I realize in that moment just how truly beautiful she is. I wasn’t lying before, at the apartment, but here, so natural, it’s elevated again.

  “Nothing,” I reply. “Just admiring you.”

  “Shoving a hot dog into my mouth?” she mumbles.

  “Amongst other things.” I wink, knowing it sounds terrible but unable to help the innuendo flow out. It’s too practiced, too rehearsed.

  “You don’t need to be like that around me, you know.” She goes to look under the table, glancing back with a smirk. “Though I do think I’ve proved I can handle your hot dog.”

  “You have,” I nod, reaching for my Coke and shifting my legs under the table to hide my erection. “Of course, there’s more to me than a big sausage.”

  “Can we just call it a penis?” Erin says, a bit too loud. A mother walking with her children guides them away from our table, scowling.

  Erin puts a hand over her mouth, struggling to contain her laughter. I love seeing her like this, genuinely happy.

  I place the Coke down and put my hands up. “Fine, I’m more than a penis.”

  Erin pops the last of the hot dog into her mouth with two fingers, swallowing. “How so? Prove it to me.”

  I sit up straight watching her, thinking. I’ve opened up a little, but there’s still a lot I’m keeping in the closet. Question is, how far do I open it? How far do I let her into my head?

  I decide to go all-in.

  I place my elbows on the table, folding my hands together. “I didn’t have an easy childhood, you know. Everyone thinks so, but they don’t know shit.”

  “Living in a mansion with a superstar father and wanting for nothing, you mean?”

  “That’s fair,” I smile. “Yes, we lived well, I had everything I needed, but I was an awkward kid. I didn’t take to sports straight away like my brothers did, much to my father’s displeasure. He’d roll me out to football practice twice a week and I’d fucking hate it, hate him. I was the laughing stock of the team, the kid who stuttered and dropped the ball. ‘Billy Butter Fingers’ they used to call me. I wore glasses for Christ’s sake, these big-ass frames that looked so unbelievably fucking stupid.”

  “I can’t picture it,” says Erin.

  “Oh, I’ve destroyed all photographic evidence, trust me. School was no better. I was beaten up and picked on… God knows how many times I was dunked in those toilets. I got real good at holding my breath, I’ll tell you that. My parents tried to intervene with the school, which only made things worse for me on the ground. The start of middle school sucked even more ass. Kids were hitting puberty and I was stuck on the launch pad, scrawny and skeletal. My brothers started to grow, tried here and there to help me out, but they had their own lives, still do.”

  “Looks to me like you hit puberty eventually.”

  My smile stretches. “You’re damn right I did. It struck like lightning. Almost overnight I started to put on weight, to fill out. My eye issues started to clear up, I literally grew balls, started looking forward to football. Soon I was taller than everyone in the grade. I started to work out and eat better, to throwing my newfound weight around.” I push the Coke aside, “Well, most of the time, but the point is, I was no longer that kid.”

  “You weren’t bullied anymore?”

  “I was too fucking big. No one dared try it. Girls started to notice me, take an interest. My hormones were cooking by this stage and yeah, I indulged. It was the start of something, I guess, the start of creating this persona, this façade for the world. And honestly? It’s been pretty damn good for me.”

  “But are you happy, being that guy?”

  Right in with the big guns. I have to look down at the table for a moment before meeting her eyes again. “Not until I found you.”

  She rolls her eyes, two hands around her can of Coke, fingernail tapping the side of the aluminum. “Oh, come on.”

  I reach for her hand. “No, I’m serious. Girls to me… they’re just objects, a way to get off and forget about study and upcoming games and practice, a quick in and out, a release.”

  “But…” she presses.

  “But you…” I’m not sure I can even verbalize this. I don’t do this heart-to-heart
shit. “I think about you all the time, and it’s not just the sex. I think I’ve fallen for you, maybe for the first time in my life, and it’s scary. It’s scary as fuck. Honestly.”

  “You might need to work on your romantic wording a bit there, buddy.”

  I laugh. “I’m no Shakespeare, but I think you know that. And that stuff about me at school, when I was a kid, I’ve never told that to anyone before.”

  “Yes you have.”

  “No, I haven’t. Really. You’re the first. If that shit was to get out, my reputation as the King of Crestfall might suffer.”

  “And we couldn’t have that now, could we?” She smiles cheekily.

  We’re still holding hands in the center of the table, watching each other, losing ourselves. The din of the carnival falls away, the clatter and rush of the rides fades, and I only see her.

  “You want to know something about me,” she says, “something I have never told anyone before?”

  “Sure,” I nod.

  She pulls in a breath, her nostrils flaring. “My mother died three years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her.

  “Cancer, of course. It always is, isn’t it? And I know that sounds cliché, like some terrible plot device to pull sympathy from the audience, but it was real for me. I lived it. I slept with her in the hospital. I held the bowl while she coughed her guts up, holding her head while she screamed on the floor, pleading for me to kill her. I was there and I was alone because my chicken-shit father decided I wasn’t worth hanging around for all those years ago.”

  “Shit.” It’s all I can say.

  “Those squishies on my desk, they sold them in the gift shop on the ground floor of the hospital. I’d buy her one a day and sit them on the shelf above her head, something to brighten the room that wasn’t going to die in a week like flowers, you know?

  “She liked it. It became a thing. Then, one day, I got to the hospital and the squishies were the only things left in the room. Her bed was empty. She’d died during the night while I sleeping away at home. She died with some stranger by her side, a nurse, because I took one night off. That’s on me.”

  I squeeze her hands tight together. “You can’t beat yourself up about that, surely.”

  “It’s not the worst part. What I’ve never told anyone before,” she continues, “is that I was happy when she passed. I wanted her to die.” A tear runs down her cheek, falls from her cheek to the top of the Coke can. “I didn’t feel sad when she died. I felt relief.” She hangs her head.

  I reach forward and lift her head up by the chin. “No, fuck it. You don’t have to feel guilty about that. No one should have to deal with something like that alone, like you did. If I was there…” My words hang because I don’t know how to finish the sentence. What can I possibly say?

  She breathes out, looking sideways to where a Tilt-a-Whirl is churning up stomachs. “I still feel guilty about it, and I loved her, don’t get me wrong, but it’s…” She can’t finish her sentence either.

  I stand and walk around the table to sit beside her, pull her tight against my chest and hold her there while she sobs, her tears turning my shirt wet.

  People watch us as they pass, but I couldn’t give a fuck.

  Let them look.

  It’s several minutes before Erin lifts her head again, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, sniffing and smiling at me. “You make a pretty good pillow, you know that? Bit hard, but not bad.”

  “Thank you,” I tell her.

  “For what?”

  “For trusting me.” And I mean it.

  “Was it too much?”

  “Not at all. I want to know everything about you, good and bad. I want to be the world’s foremost expert on Erin Nash, which, by the way, sounds like an awesome country singer’s name.”

  She laugh-snorts, shaking her head at me. “You know, I guess Erin Janine Nash does have kind of country twang to it, doesn’t it?”

  “You could sing the blues, sing about going down to the river, or the trainyard or whatever it is, how you lost your one true love there.”

  She sits upright, looks ten times brighter than she did before. “And you’ll be my backup singer, the King? Wait, that’s not going to work, is it?”

  “Something else you should know about me,” I confess. “I’m a terrible fucking singer. Think one of those in-sink garbage disposal systems being slowly strangled to death.”

  “It cannot be that bad. What do you do when it’s karaoke?”

  I wag a finger in the air. “I have a secret weapon. I simply pull up a Weird Al Yankovic cover and get everyone to sing along. People love that shit.”

  She’s laughing. “You do not.”

  “I do. Next time we’re at a party I’ll pull up Eat It and you’ll see.” I take her hand, standing. “Shall we?”

  “We shall,” she smiles back.

  We walk back through the carnival talking about anything and everything, not really settling on any one subject.

  “Erin?”

  Erin stops walking mid-step.

  It’s the girl from the paper office, the flirt — Amanda. She’s with some guy who is in tactical pants wearing a T-shirt proclaiming ‘Freedom Forever’ or some shit — your usual two-bit blockhead.

  Amanda’s eyes are all over me. She’s eye-fucking me like there’s no tomorrow, and right in front of who I assume is her boyfriend.

  “Amanda, hi,” says Erin timidly.

  Amanda’s still looking at me, shifting her weight to one leg now. “Oh,” she says, suddenly realizing who she’s standing next to. “This is Jeremy.”

  I extend my hand. “Nice to meet you, man.”

  He shakes it, tries to fucking break my fingers in a show of alpha strength. It doesn’t work. “I’ve seen you out on the field,” he says, sandpaper voice to match.

  “He’s incredible with a football under his arm, isn’t he?” adds Amanda, practically pushing Jeremy aside. “How did you get to be so good? I bet all the girls at Crestfall want a piece of you, right?”

  This is getting really fucking awkward. Erin’s giving me a funny look and the tension has ratcheted up to almost unbearable levels. Amanda’s getting too loose. I wouldn’t be surprised if she suddenly pulled her top off and proclaimed ‘Spring break!’

  I don’t know how to answer. I hang my head. “Ah, something like that.”

  “You football boys really work out, don’t you?” She reaches up and touches my bicep, laughing at Jeremy. “It feels like an actual rock. You should feel it, Jeremy. Go on.”

  I’m pretty sure Jeremy does not want to feel it. He looks like he’s on the juice, vein about to pop in his forehead given the way he’s trying to stare-stab me.

  This shit is getting uncomfortable. Somewhere in the mix I’ve let go of Erin’s hand. I search for it awkwardly but can’t find it.

  “We should really get going,” Erin cuts in. “Lots to see and all.”

  Amanda’s eyes run up and down my body. “You can say that again.”

  “Come on,” says Jeremy, tugging her away, “let’s go.”

  “Nice to see you again,” giggles Amanda, eyes only directed my way.

  “Yeah,” I say. “See you guys ’round.”

  They walk off and I have no idea what to do. I feel guilty even though I haven’t done anything wrong.

  “That was… weird,” says Erin.

  “Yeah,” I exhale. “That’s one word for it.”

  My head’s running away from me. I don’t feel like myself, like my brain’s been taken over, and I know it’s Erin. I like her too much. I’m in way too deep here.

  First real date and I’m opening up like a fucking tin can.

  It’s starting to scare me.

  “Look,” I say, running my hand through my hair, “I’m going to head back, okay? I need to get some sleep, big game coming and all.”

  Erin stands before me, eyebrows knitted together. “Um, yeah, okay. You good?”

  “Yeah,
I’m good,” I lie. “Just getting tired.”

  “Sure.”

  “Sure.”

  And here I thought the encounter with Amanda was the most awkward moment of the night.

  Erin and I were so close tonight and now it suddenly seems like a wall’s been constructed between us in the space of seconds.

  I want to kiss her, to apologize — for what I have no idea — but I can’t bring myself to do it. The great Peyton King has turned into a coward.

  She’s gotten to you, my head says. You promised yourself no girl would get to you, to take you over. You said it.

  I did. Maybe what’s needed here is some distance, some time. I’ll stay away from her for a few days, just to prove to myself I can, as a show of discipline. If I still feel the way I do after that, I can explore it, but for now….

  I let the thought wander away, let myself start to back up, plastering on a fake smile and waving like an idiot. “You’ll be okay to get home?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she replies, smiling back with the same manufactured smile, a mirror of my own.

  The laughing clowns to our left look happier than we do, and they’re getting deepthroated by ping pong balls.

  I wave until a passing throng of teenagers blocks her out, finally letting my hand fall back to my side and thinking, What the fuck are you doing?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ERIN

  ‘Sent’ reads on my monitor screen. I lean back in my chair with my hands on my head and breathe out.

  It’s done. I’ve sent the first draft of the story to Lewis. I’d like to say I’m completely confident with it, but you never know with these things. Editors are a fickle, go-where-the-wind-takes-them bunch.

  I take a moment to go over the events of the last few days — events I certainly left out of said draft. Lewis wants a piece of journalism. Not the next 50 Shades.

  The thought of Peyton taking control, a quick hand against my ass, is too much for a school day. I stand and make my way to the kitchenette at the back of the office ignoring the twenty signs telling staff to ‘Empty the dishwasher!’ or ‘Clean up after yourself!’ or ‘Label food in fridge!’ For a supposed master of grammar and the intricacies of the English language, Lewis sure does like an exclamation mark or two.