Red Zone

by Shannon West

  The minute he was out of sight, I bolted over to the door, wrenched it open and ran out into the hallway. I didn’t bother with the elevator, just ran down the stairs and kept running. I half expected to see him coming after me when I got to the lobby, but there was nobody around, even though I saw the elevator lights were on and somebody was coming down. I didn’t wait to see who it was. I ducked outside and ran around the back of the building, then headed into the little copse of woods behind it. It wasn’t much of a cover or a hiding place. There was a busy street not thirty yards away, but I didn’t think Memphis would look for me here. If he was even looking… Maybe he was thanking his lucky stars I’d left. Maybe he woke up and realized he didn’t need somebody like me in his life.

  All this running away was childish, but I’d had about all I could stand for one day. I ran into a little clearing and just stood there, leaning against a tree as I realized I had no fucking place to go. I had no car and no idea where I’d even sleep tonight. All I knew was I couldn’t stay in that suite.

  I could have gone back inside and talked to him—explained everything after he finally calmed down. That would have been the mature thing to do. But he was right—how could he believe in me again? If I had something to cut myself with right then, I think I would have done it. Anything was better than feeling like this.

  He’d said he couldn’t trust me again, and who could blame him? Hell, I couldn’t even trust myself. If I kept hanging around him, I’d only bring him down. Ruin any chance he had of getting to play in the NFL. And for what? Like I had with my dad, I’d only disappoint him in the end.

  I sat there by that tree for a little while feeling sorry for myself until it started to get colder and then I went back inside the building and took the elevator up to the fourth floor. I knew that my friend Malachi Reynolds, the center of our team, lived there with another offensive lineman, Billy Edwards. They’d give me their sofa to sleep on tonight, and then in the morning, after Memphis left for school, I could go back up and get my things. And that was about as far as I could plan right then. Malachi was so loyal to me that he’d never warmed up to Memphis, so I knew he’d help and keep my presence in his apartment a secret until I could figure things out. I didn’t know what else to do. Oh, I knew Memphis would help me, but I wasn’t ready to go crawling back yet.

  I’d go back to see my advisor first thing in the morning and get the information I needed about student loans. If he didn’t know himself, he could point me in the right direction at least. Maybe there was some kind of emergency provision. I just couldn’t think any further than that. I felt too heartsick. Too sad. It wasn’t every day that your whole world turned upside down, after all. I hoped the universe would give me a little time to regroup.

  Chapter Ten

  Memphis

  It had been two days since I’d seen Kingston last and I was about to lose my mind. If he hadn’t sneaked back in the apartment the day after he left when I was in class, I would probably have already called the police to look for him. I was that freaked out and scared to death that he’d hurt himself.

  I was furious at him for leaving, but I was even more furious at myself for letting him go. When I first heard the door close behind him, I should have run after him, but instead I thought, hell, let him go if that’s what he wants.

  That lasted about two minutes and then I was out of the suite and racing for the elevator. When I got downstairs, I couldn’t see his car anywhere, and in fact, I hadn’t seen it when I came in. I had actually been a little surprised to hear noises coming from the kitchen when I came in that night, and then I came into the room and found him cutting. I had been so shocked and angry I hadn’t even known what I was saying, really. It wasn’t until later that I replayed it all in my head and then I could have kicked myself for losing control the way I had. He’d needed me to be strong for him and at the first sign of trouble, I’d caved in like a mine disaster and let my temper get the best of me.

  I wanted to find him and apologize. I was going to give him the worst punishment of all time, but I needed him home and back in our bed, because I…I loved him.

  The knowledge hit me like a ton of bricks and I had to sit down for a minute. God, I loved him. Loved his wit and his heart and his courage. Loved his snark and his humor and those little smartass comebacks of his. Loved his beauty both inside and out and how he couldn’t see what everybody else saw so clearly—that he was something special in the world. And he was mine.

  Or he had been until I’d fucked it up and drove him away. I called his cell phone a million times and left dozens of messages. I looked everywhere for him and even asked his closest friends on the team—the ones who still hated my guts for taking his spot—if they’d seen him or talked to him. We were in practice the next afternoon after he left and I’d hoped Kingston would show up, but he didn’t. My dad was pissed and so were the other coaches. Everybody I talked to claimed they hadn’t seen him and didn’t know where he was, but Malachi, one of the offensive linemen, seemed to glare at me extra hard so I thought he knew something. Just in case, I told him to tell Kingston, if he saw him, that I needed to talk to him.

  “Yeah, I’ll be sure to do that,” he replied and spit on the field a little too close to my feet. He looked up and grinned at me. “Uh-oh. Sorry about that.”

  I gave him a steady glare. “Just tell him, Malachi. It’s important.”

  He lifted one corner of his upper lip and sauntered off toward the locker room. I considered going after him and making him tell me what he knew, but I convinced myself that would be a bad idea and left him alone.

  I even tried to call his parents to find out if he went home or if they’d heard from him, but I didn’t get any answer at their house, and I couldn’t remember the name of his father’s company. It was a long shot anyway, but I was getting desperate.

  The next day was Saturday, and by that time I’d talked to just about every friend of Kingston’s that I knew. Nobody claimed to know anything. I sent him a few more message and spent a few hours just riding around town, hoping to spot his car, but no luck. Late that afternoon, I got a call from Ben.

  “Memphis, I forgot to ask what time you and Kingston will be arriving tonight. I wanted to talk to him before the demonstration tonight.”

  I closed my eyes and groaned. “Hell, Ben, I forgot to call you. Kingston won’t be there tonight. Something…uh…something came up.”

  There was a silence on the line and then he said, “Something came up in the five minutes since I talked to him?”

  “You talked to him? Five minutes ago?”

  “Yeah…hey, is everything okay with you? What’s going on? Is Kingston okay?”

  “I wish I knew. We had a fight and I haven’t seen him in two days. He won’t answer my calls and none of his friends will tell me where he is.”

  “I thought he sounded a little off when I talked to him, but he said he was tired from practice.”

  “He didn’t show up for practice, and that’s not like him. He knows how important practice is now that the championship games are so close. This just isn’t like him, and I’m worried sick.”

  “I hear you. Well, if it’s any consolation, he picked up right away when I called and said he’d be there tonight at the party at the club. He said he’d do the demo with me and never mentioned any problems.”

  “Thanks Ben. Don’t mention to him that we talked. If he knew I was coming, he might not show up.”

  “All right. But I thought the two of you were getting really close.”

  “We were. We are…it’s…just a misunderstanding, that’s all. I just need to talk to him.”

  “Well, good luck. I guess that means I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Absolutely. Just don’t tell Kingston you talked to me.”

  We hung up then and I went straight back to our suite to get ready. Things wouldn’t get started until around eight o’clock, and if he saw my truck, he might not go inside. I’d wait until I knew he was the
re for sure before I went in. My heart started beating with excitement and I could hardly sit still. I was going to claim him tonight and take him back home where he belonged, and I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  I had to see him and know that he was safe. Then once I did, I was going to pink up that bottom of his for scaring me so badly, and I didn’t care if it reinforced him or not. This one would be for me, and I was going to enjoy every second of it.

  ****

  Kingston

  I arrived at the club in an Uber around seven o’clock and carefully scanned the parking lot for Memphis’s big truck before I got out. I wasn’t sure if he’d be there or not, but I wasn’t taking any chances of being waylaid by him in the parking lot.

  Who was I kidding? I knew he would come, sooner or later, and it was one of the reasons I’d agreed to show up tonight to help Ben with his demo. I wouldn’t even mind being waylaid. I really missed him more than I thought possible after only two days.

  But I still wanted a little revenge. I wanted Memphis to sit in the audience and watch me on stage and I wanted him to drool and wish he was up there with me. To be jealous of me and sorry that he’d been such an ass.

  I doubted he would be, but that’s what I wanted.

  My feelings about him had done a complete one-eighty in the two days since I left him. Possibly helped along a little by Malachi. I’d gone from thinking I wasn’t good enough for him to being totally pissed off at him for not trusting me and jumping on me the minute he saw me instead of calmly asking what I was doing.

  Okay, so maybe I wasn’t being completely rational about it. Admittedly, he had walked in on me with a piece of sharp glass in my hand and blood trickling down my arm, so I guess it did look pretty bad. But he shouldn’t have yelled the way he had and made me cut myself. And he should have given me an opportunity to explain myself instead of going off on me.

  Malachi said he was a total dick and while I wasn’t willing to go that far, his behavior that night did have some dickish aspects to it. I had been waiting there in our suite so I could pour my heart out to him after all, and have him comfort me about the things my father said. Instead, he jumped all over me and stormed out of the room without giving me a chance to explain. The fact that he might have listened if I’d stayed around until he got back was something I didn’t want to think about. I was too mad at him.

  He had been sending me texts for the last two days, but none of them said he was sorry. He just kept asking me to call him or come home and talk, and I wasn’t ready for that yet. I think I wanted him to grovel a little first. I’d even missed practice on Friday, because I didn’t want the drama, and I knew the coach would make me really sorry about that. We had an off week this weekend, but I was already dreading Monday morning.

  I went inside and found Ben at a table near the bar. He was sitting with some of his Dom friends, so I told him I’d be around when he was ready, and I drifted over to sit at the bar. One of the guys who was sitting there turned to look me over. He was blond and nice looking in a way, and I guess he liked what he saw because he smiled at me, so I smiled back.

  “What’s your name?” he asked me.

  “Kingston.”

  “Would you like to dance?” The jukebox had started playing some Garth Brooks song, and I turned toward him to say no, but that’s when I saw Memphis coming into the room, looking straight at me.

  “Sure, I’d love to,” I said and let the blond guy lead me out on the dance floor. We had just started swaying to the music, and I was looking everywhere except where I thought Memphis might be, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I really wasn’t surprised that he’d cut in.

  “Excuse me,” Memphis asked, “can I have this dance?”

  I blew out a breath and turned toward him, but Memphis was looking right past me at my partner and smiling. “Would you like to dance?” he asked him and the blond smiled back at him and pushed past me.

  “You don’t mind, do you, Kingsley?” the blond asked.

  “The name’s Kingston.”

  “Whatever,” he said over his shoulder as he wrapped himself up in Memphis’s arms. Memphis smirked at me, and I heard someone chuckle.

  “Memphis is a good dancer, I’ll bet,” Ben said, standing behind me, and I scowled at him.

  “I guess so. If you don’t mind two left feet.”

  Ben laughed out loud that time and put a companionable arm around my shoulders. “Time to get ready for the demo. What are you wearing?”

  “I brought an outfit.”

  “You can change in the back room if you like.”

  “Thanks,” I said and went to the bar to retrieve my bag and take it to the back room. I decided to go with just the tiniest of black thongs, mainly because I wanted to get a rise out of Memphis. I knew the bastard was trying to make me jealous by dancing with the blond and while it did piss me off, I was determined not to show it.

  I found an empty locker and got undressed, then pulled on my skimpy black leather thong. I admired myself in the full-length mirror for a moment and then turned to go back out to the club and ran straight into the wall of muscle that was Memphis Sawyer.

  He looked me up and down. “You look nice. Just one thing missing.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “A freshly spanked ass,” he said and picked me up and threw me across his shoulder. Now I wasn’t small by any stretch of the imagination, but he handled me like I was a lightweight. “Damn it, put me down, Memphis!” I yelled, but he kept walking straight back behind the dressing room to a private room beyond. He carried me over to the center of the room and put me back on my feet. I swung at him, but he caught my fist in his hand.

  “Play nice, or you won’t sit for a week.”

  “You’re not going to spank me!”

  “Yes, I am, and I’m going to make you like it too.”

  “I hate you!”

  “No, you don’t.”

  I glared at him. “You didn’t give me a chance to explain! You just started yelling at me!”

  “Well, I’m standing here now. Explain.”

  “I don’t want to now.”

  “One more chance, fireball.”

  “Okay! I met with my father like I told you, and he-he said some awful things and cut me off. He said he wouldn’t pay for my tuition or anything else and he even took my car away and said he didn’t care if I lived on the streets. I told him I didn’t need his damn money, and I took an Uber home to talk to you about it. I waited a while and…and when I was getting a glass of water, the glass slipped out of my hand and broke. I picked up the pieces and…” I glanced up at him.

  “And?”

  “You know what happened. I started to cut because of what had happened. I had the sharp piece of glass right there ready to cut. But then I thought of you and what you’d think, and …and I couldn’t do it. That’s when you came in and started screaming at me.”

  He just stared at me for the longest time and then he put a finger under my chin and raised it so I was looking straight at him. “Is that the truth?”

  “Yes!”

  He nodded and went over to sit on the bed and patted his lap. “You know what to do.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Is that all you have to say? You’re not going to apologize to me?”

  “I came in and found you with a big chunk of glass in your hand and you had it embedded in your arm. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you can see how easy it was for me to misinterpret the situation?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. What’s your point?”

  “I left the room for a few seconds, and when I came back out you had run away. Is that about right?”

  I shifted miserably. “Again, what’s your point?”

  “I think I responded to the situation fairly reasonably, and while I may have been angry and said things I shouldn’t have…”

  “Like you couldn’t trust me anymore?”

  “Like that. It
was said in the heat of the moment and I apologize. I shouldn’t have said it. You, on the other hand, acted like a spoiled brat and ran away and hid from me. For two days. I was worried about you.”

  “I-I’m sorry you were worried.”

  “I’m sorry too, baby. We both have trust issues, I guess, and we need to work through them. Do you agree?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What was that again?”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Okay. Then let’s get you ready for the demonstration.”

  ****

  Memphis

  I patted my lap and he came over to me, giving me plenty of looks, his face red. “You can use your safe word, if you like.”

  “No. I don’t need to.”

  Slowly, he placed himself over my knees, finally settling with his head hanging down and his feet stretching out behind him, his cute little toes scrunched up on the floor. I pulled his thong to one side a little roughly, the way he liked it, making him moan. His hard, thick cock fit nicely between my thighs, and I tightened around him, causing him to start breathing hard and excited. I put one hand on his back to hold him securely and then I came down with a sharp crack on his bottom.

  “One,” he said, his voice hoarse. He might be only going along with the punishment, and he’d get off big time on the pain. But I knew how much his pride—the pride that always caused him trouble—was suffering.

  After about five minutes—I drew it out as long as possible—I finished spanking him and sat for a moment admiring his ass. I smoothed my hands over those pink cheeks, before pulling him up to settle him in my lap, facing me. He couldn’t look at me, but his pretty cock was hard and leaking, so I took it in my hand, rubbing my thumb over the head. I lowered my mouth to find his and kissed him long and hard.

  “All right, baby?” I asked him, and he nodded, then buried his hot face in my shoulder. I dropped my mouth to his throat and worked my way along his collarbone. He groaned and pushed up into my hand, putting his arm around my waist and holding tightly to me. I stood up with him still in my arms, and he gasped as I plopped him down on the bed and began to unbutton my trousers and shove them to the floor. I slipped out of the rest of my clothes as he watched me hungrily, his pink tongue darting out to wet his lips. I crawled up on the bed and on top of him again, settling myself between his thighs and took the lube from the drawer beside the bed where they always kept it. I coated myself with it, lifted his leg and then drove my cock into him in one, hard thrust. I wasn’t wearing a condom for the first time. We’d both been tested and we hadn’t been with anyone else. It was time for us to take this last step, and he’d been wanting to for a while now.