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

by Teagan Kade

  I can’t believe she does this on a regular basis—by herself. It’s insanity.

  An armful of sandwiches each, I’m surprised when the people approaching start to form lines, as if we were back in the dining hall, as if this was expected practice.

  Heather smiles as the first guy approaches her. She hands him a sandwich. “How’s it going, Bill? You seen someone about that tooth yet?”

  He mumbles something back I can’t understand, nodding his thanks before walking off eating his sandwich.

  With a shuffle of feet, I notice a girl in front of me with her hand extended. She can’t be more than fifteen or sixteen, face waxen.

  I fumble with the sandwich. “Ah, here you go. Bon appétit.”

  Bon appétit? The fuck you saying, idiot?

  “I mean, enjoy,” I correct.

  The girl takes the sandwich and smiles, looking to Heather. “Who’s the pretty boy, H?”

  “You’d rather Gordy?” she laughs, handing out her next sandwich, the line moving along.

  The girl in front of me winks. “See you around, hot stuff.” She walks off, unwrapping her sandwich immediately and crouching to eat.

  “How you doin’?”

  I don’t think the next guy has any teeth at all. It gives his voice a curious, whistling tone. “Not bad,” I reply. “Here you go.”

  I flinch when he slaps his big hand on my shoulder.

  “God bless you, son,” he says. “God bless you both.”

  He waddles off and I keep handing out sandwiches.

  My initial reluctance starts to dissipate. These people aren’t dangerous. They’re just hungry, seem to have better manners than the student body of Crestfall combined.

  Five minutes later the line’s gone.

  Heather pops the trunk again. “See? It wasn’t that bad, was it?”

  I notice her pulling out another box of sandwiches. “There’s more?”

  She dips her head towards the bridge. “Couple of shy ones.” She hands me the box. “Here you go ‘hot stuff’. Follow me.”

  Even with the fire going it’s cold under the bridge, the river a dirty, cigar brown. It’s almost like a small town under here, huts and makeshift shelters everywhere, some quite ingenious and elaborate.

  I follow behind Heather. She nods to some people, others popping out of their abodes to say hi. It would seem she’s well known around these parts.

  We come to the end of the pylon where an older woman’s sitting there staring at a lifeless TV. She’s wearing about ten blankets, the topmost tattered and frayed.

  Heather takes a sandwich from the box, crouching in front of her. “Sal?”

  It takes a moment for the woman to register. “Heather!”

  Heather reaches out and squeezes her hand. “You doin’ okay, Sal?” She looks to the TV. “Anything good on?”

  Sal scrunches up her face. “Just that stupid I Love Lucy. That Ricky Ricardo is a real sleaze.”

  “I know,” Heather replies, offering the sandwich with her other hand. “Hungry? It’s your favorite.”

  Sal takes the sandwich slowly and tucks it under a blanket. “You’re a doll, Heather.” Sal seems to notice me for the first time. “Who’s the muscle?”

  Heather invites me forward. “This is Phoenix King. Phoenix, this is Sally.”

  “Huh,” Sal nods. “I used to know a King—the King of England. We were very close before that bitch Elizabeth came along.”

  I can see Heather suppressing laughter. “I bet you were a real peach back in the day, Sal.”

  “Just like you,” she says, looking to me with narrowed eyes. “And you, buster, better take good care of our Heather. You hearing me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I might look old, but I can still whip your ass if I want to.”

  Now I am the one trying to suppress laughter. “I, ah, I’m sure you could, ma’am.”

  Sal waves us away. “Off you go then, lovebirds. Thanks for stopping by.”

  Heather gives her hand a final squeeze. “We’ll be back real soon, Sal. You stay safe, okay?”

  “You know me,” she smiles.

  We hand out the rest of the sandwiches to those unable to make it to their feet. It was a shock seeing how these people live at first, but the way Heather moves among them, her generous spirit… It moves even the stone I have for a heart.

  We stop at a diner not far from the bridge. It’s empty, looks like it hasn’t been updated since the twenties. There are still hat hooks on every booth, the chipped tabletops all original. A waitress arrives who also looks like she’s been here since Calvin Coolidge was president. We relay our orders and she walks off in no great rush to the grill.

  “You look like you’re still in a state of shock,” Heather tells me. She sits with one arm over the top of the booth, casual as can be.

  “Impressed, more like it. You do that every week?”

  “Twice, three times a week when I can manage it, but it’s still not enough. You saw those people. They ain’t getting shit from the government, less from the town itself. I owe them what I can. We all do.”

  My mind’s churning, seeing possibility. “Tell me more about this charity thing you want to start up.”

  “You already got into my pants. There’s no need to play along.”

  “I’m not that fucking shallow. Come on. Humor me.”

  She rocks forward and places her arms on the table. “Okay. Simply put, the soup kitchen lost its funding and we couldn’t make up the difference with donations, thus the whole food truck thing I’m trying to get going given we don’t have enough to buy a place for the kitchen. You think it’s a stupid idea, don’t you?”

  I put my hands up, realize I haven’t thought about basketball once today. “Not at all. What if I could help?”

  “You?”

  “Why not? I’m a King. I’ve got connections. We could,” I pause to think of something, but I’m working on the fly here, hunting, “have an auction perhaps?”

  “An auction?”

  “A fundraiser,” I detail. “I can get people I know to donate, and I know a shitload of people with more money than sense who’d jump at the chance to offload some of it for a bit of moral laundering.”

  “You really think that would work?”

  The idea’s starting to grow on me. Our burgers and milkshakes arrive, but I’m too caught up in this to care. “Come on,” I press, “you know it would work. We could make serious money—enough to get your truck, maybe even get the soup kitchen going again if that’s what you really want, an actual brick-and-mortar establishment the town can’t take away.” I point out the window. “You know how much cash there is on the other side of the tracks waiting to be spent on the next Porsche or Louis Vuitton? Let’s redirect that shit to something that matters.”

  “If this a TED talk, I gotta admit, you’re kind of winning me over.”

  Her smile tells me I’m on the right path. “We could even enlist Alissa. She’d be great at organizing this, give her something else to do other than spend my father’s money.”

  “Who’s Alissa?”

  Details. Details. “Dad’s latest, ah, wife, whatever... It doesn’t matter. The key point here is I can make something like this work if you’re in. Are you in, boss lady?”

  She bites her lower lip, bright eyes betraying her own excitement. “You know I am, but there’s a lot you’d have to do. This isn’t just some science project you can cobble together the night before.”

  I shrug. “I know.”

  She slides my burger across to me. “Eat up. Dumbass. We can discuss details later.”

  I pick up the burger. “After sex?”

  She starts to blush even though there’s no one else around. “If you’re a good boy.”

  I act shocked. “Aren’t I always?”

  “Don’t know if Sal was convinced.”

  I laugh. “You mean the same woman who just told us she was banging King George?”

  Heather
almost chokes on her first bite. “I’m sure they didn’t ‘bang’ back then. It was probably a very cordial affair.”

  “Is that what we are, a ‘cordial affair’? Because earlier? That was just the aperitif.”

  Heather swallows. “And I suppose you have something with a bit more meat to it for main course?”

  “Baby,” I tell her, leaning close, “you’ve never seen what’s on my menu.” I bring my hands to my feet and push them away. “Boom. I’m talking mind-blowing stuff here.”

  “How did I wind up with such a modest, humble man-child?”

  “Modesty didn’t seem high on the agenda when I was eating you out.”

  She reaches forward and slaps at my hand. “Quiet. You’re going to get us kicked out of here.”

  I look around. “By who? Betty White over there?”

  We laugh, eat. It might not be the most glamorous of restaurants, but it’s enough. I look at Heather and I don’t want to disappoint her, ever. I know she’s thinking I won’t move forward with this fundraising thing, but she’s dead wrong.

  If a King puts his mind to something, you can damn well guarantee they’re going to see it through.

  CHAPTER TEN

  HEATHER

  I know it’s building up inside me, that smitten-ness that wants to overwhelm reason and logic, to give my all to Phoenix. I’ve seen a different side of him these last few days, a caring and compassionate side I had no idea even existed in a creature of this nature. I thought it may have been a show, but I was wrong. There’s a lot more to Phoenix King than a pretty face.

  And cock, my head interrupts, the sexual thoughts that follow cutting through the static.

  We parked out the back of the diner, but I can’t even wait until we get to the car.

  I pull Phoenix into a side alley and press him up against the wall. An angular line of light cuts his face in two, turns his eyes into upturned icebergs. He’s smiling. “Is this where you mug me? I’ve done some kinky shit, but that would take the cake.”

  I part his leather jacket and start to undo his belt. “I simply want to show you my appreciation.”

  “For?”

  Belt undone, I pop the button on his jeans and take down the zipper, fishing inside his underwear for his cock. It’s hot and hard in my hand as I pull it free, lightly pumping it in the open. “Giving a damn, I guess,” I finally reply.

  He looks left to the end of the alley, but barely anyone comes through here. “I didn’t take you for the ‘act of public indecency’ kind.”

  I get down to my knees, tugging his pants and underwear with me until they’re bridged between his thick thighs, his beautiful cock on display right before my eyes, and it is a thing of beauty, tall and regal and proud, the cock of a champion.

  I stroke him with one hand, use the flat of my thumb to press against the sensitive area under his glans. “If you think I’m a good girl, you would be quite mistaken.”

  With that, I slowly lean forward and take him in my mouth.

  His head falls back against the brick and he groans long and low, hips thrusting forward to drive himself deeper between my lips.

  I moan back against him, feel the vibrations of my voice shifting down his shaft as I roll my tongue around the head of him, enjoy the velvety texture of his member. This isn’t my usual MO at all, but I can’t help myself. Ever since this morning my entire body’s been pent up full of sexual energy. I’ve never felt anything like it.

  I pump him with my hand, letting my fingers tighten around the root of him as I lower myself over his length, barely able to take half of him before my gag reflex kicks in.

  I don’t think he minds, whispering my name, his fingers weaving into my hair and holding me in place against him.

  I flatten my free hand against his chest, still cannot believe how hard it is, like freshly carved rock still hot from the blade.

  He gently starts to swing against me, groaning in satisfaction, willing me on. The muscles in his leg flex and tighten. He grips my hair tighter, begins to lever with greater urgency, buttocks squeezing against the wall.

  Something purrs beside me.

  I flinch, looking to see a dusty alley cat sitting there.

  I draw my head back, continuing to ring and pump at Phoenix’s wet cock. “Looks like we have an audience,” I note.

  “Let him watch,” Phoenix replies, gently guiding me back to his crotch.

  I double my efforts, taking him as deep as I can and for the first time if my life it’s actually enjoyable. It’s the effect I’m having on him, the joy at giving him pleasure that’s turning me on so much.

  I take my hand off his chest and run it under the waistband of my pants, drive it down and start to rub my clit, feel the rush of endorphins that follow.

  I moan around him, moving faster now and clearly aware of Phoenix’s choppy breathing, the way his body is coiling tight ready to explode.

  I slip my fingers into my wetness and spread my knees wider, lick at the tight seam between his glans until I know he can’t take a second more.

  He grips my head hard, pulling me onto his length. “Fuck. I’m going to—”

  He lets up and goes to pull himself free, but I go deeper instead, a single second before he stops, convulses, and releases in my mouth.

  I’ve never done this before, never even considered it, but I take it all, swallowing his sweet release down, my fingers working between my legs, the top of my palm pressed hard against my clit.

  His cock pulses there between my lips.

  “Fuck,” he stammers, jerking forward again.

  I let his cock free slowly, lick the last pearly drop of seed off the tip of him and press it away between my lips, watching him all the while.

  The cat, clearly unimpressed, purrs once and saunters off.

  Phoenix flattens his hands against the wall, looks like he’s about to pass out. “Holy shit. That was… I don’t even have words.” He glances down where my hand is still hidden away inside my pants, rounding out the crotch of them every time my fingers shift. “Did you come?”

  I shake my head. “No, but it’s fine, really.”

  He reaches down to lift me up. “No, it’s not.”

  He takes hold of my jeans and yanks them down hard, right down to my knees. The air of the alley’s cool on my sex, a nervous, taboo rush of blood following. I look at him in alarm, can smell the moist trace of my need.

  “This,” he replies, coming forward and lifting me under the thighs, spinning us and heaving me against the alley wall, “is perfection.” There, my jeans tangled between my knees high between us, my bare ass and pussy exposed, he presses forward until I’m wedged against the hard slab of his body and the brick at my back.

  In a single, vaulted thrust he drives upwards, filling me with his cock.

  My mouth opens in shock, but it’s soon dampened when his own comes against it, his tongue shifting between my lips and causing that sexual energy to reach critical mass.

  I take in his scent, the corded muscle of his body, the way he holds me against the wall as if I were nothing.

  He pounds at me from below, the wet slap-slap-slap of our bodies echoing in the narrow space of the alley, my cries muffled by his mouth.

  I reach to his back, all I can do against the onslaught.

  I’m so wet, a slick mess between my legs each time he rises inside me, a hot, molten pulsing starting in my core and spreading south, urging me towards climax.

  I writhe as he buries himself in the depths of my pussy, his hips bucking up and forward, his cock a hard piston working and working against me until the greater world is lost and replaced with only him and me and the fucking. Because that is the word for it. This isn’t nice and cordial. This is raw and dirty and rough.

  I nip at his lower lip, more out of instinct than any one desire. He responds by heaving forward, the brick harsh against my lower back, scraping there in juxtaposition to the heated tangle of body-against-body.

  A plane flies ov
erhead, cutting through the silence.

  I pull away, the back of my head knocking against the wall, that pulsing filling me from head to toe, forcing me higher and higher until…

  Phoenix senses it, driving harder and faster, his cock moving in a frenzy until I crest and come.

  I suck in air through my teeth as my climax lashes me, an urgent gasp following I’m sure can be heard through all Crestfall.

  With his own, stunted groan Phoenix pauses, the dim sensation of his own release following.

  But I’m too lost, caught there like I’m wrapped in livewire, my body thrashing and jerking, unable to be still. He holds me there through the whole thing, holds me until all I can do is let my head fall against his shoulder.

  We remain locked there for some time until Phoenix slowly pulls himself free, letting me down on shaky legs I’m not even sure work anymore.

  He helps me get my pants back up, smiling as he does so. “Can’t say I planned for that.”

  I know how I must look—hair plastered across my face, skin patchy and red, but I see that same smitten-ness in Phoenix’s eyes, a mirror image of my own. “Sometimes spontaneity is best.”

  “Heather?”

  I stop at the sound of that voice having just done up the top button on my pants.

  Both Phoenix and I turn to find Teddy Reynolds there, the local, and only, police officer in this part of town. We grew up together. I’ll never know why he came back, why he went off to the Academy, did all that work simply to be back in this shithole.

  He looks almost amusing in his police get-up, one hand on the butt of his gun, though I can’t tell if it’s a casual thing or he’s getting ready to draw on us.

  I swallow and try not to look like I’ve just been fucked against the wall. “Teddy, hi. It’s been a while.”

  He stops a few feet away, looks between Phoenix and me. “Got to say, I expected to find a couple of horny kids down here.”

  You have, my head wants to answer, but I manage to brush my hair back instead and straighten, try to look somewhat less guilty. “Sorry to disappoint.” I gesture to Phoenix. “This is, ah, Phoenix King, from the Crestfall Sports Academy. He was helping me hand out some sandwiches down by the bridge.”