Keeping Score

by Violet Paige

  Two

  Julie

  I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, waiting at the side of the bar for the last drink order.

  “Three beers for you, sweetheart.”

  “Thanks, Hal.”

  I placed each beer on the tray and lifted it carefully from the surface. All I had to do was drop these drinks off at the table and I could walk away.

  I didn’t have to look at Mister-six-foot-five-sex-on-a-stick. I certainly didn’t have to flirt with him, no matter how much I liked it. I knew I was in a bad spot. I had taken this job out of financial desperation, but that didn’t mean I had lost my dignity. I could do this. I could be around an insanely attractive man and not lose my damn mind.

  I straightened my shoulders.

  As soon as those football players walked in tonight, the other waitresses started fighting over who got to serve them. But since the bar was divided into sections the fighting didn’t last long. They ended up in mine. Mine. As if I had some kind of ownership over Kane Hawkins.

  I took a big breath and walked steadily to the table.

  “Here you go.” I served each beer.

  “Thanks, Julie.” His grin was as sexy as the rest of him.

  “I’ll check on you gentleman in a few minutes.”

  I wanted to say or do something, but didn’t know how or what just yet. My brain said one thing, and my body said something totally different. His eyes met mine and I couldn’t deny the flash of dirty thoughts that ran through my head.

  I needed space. Air. A place to breathe. I knew that much. I bolted from the table and found a quiet place in the back hallway on the other side of the storage room. There was a screen door that led to the employee parking lot. I leaned against the wall and tried to steady my breathing.

  My first night. The very first night here and I was acting like a drunk college girl being hit on by the school’s quarterback. I had to get my shit together. I wasn’t eighteen and he wasn’t a sweet cute guy. No. He was a professional football player. That couldn’t be a good thing, could it?

  I tensed when I heard the sound of boots cross past the employees only boundary. His shadow made it around the corner before I saw him. The only light came from the storage room. His face was dark. His body towered over mine.

  “Hey.” Kane’s voice was low and sexy.

  He pressed his hand into the wood over my shoulder, closing the gap between us. I placed my hands against his chest like I was going to push him away but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

  “Hi,” I whispered.

  I didn’t know what was happening. I could smell the beer on his breath and faint traces of cologne from his shirt.

  “What are you doing back here?” he asked.

  I hadn’t been able to look him in the eyes all night. Too much lust and hunger was buried there, but I took a chance. As soon as I did, I knew it was a mistake. He wanted to devour me. Now.

  “I needed a break,” I whispered.

  “Break from what?” he teased. His body leaned into mine and I sighed. He was a solid mass of muscle and strength.

  “Just some stuff.” Oh my God. I sounded stupid. “What are you doing back here? It’s staff only,” I challenged.

  I knew exactly what I wanted to hear from him. Some kind of reassure that he wasn’t the man I had heard about. That the fact that he had followed me back to the private hallway meant he didn’t think of me like he did the rest of the bimbos that worked here. I wanted something that I knew Kane Hawkins wasn’t capable of giving me.

  “I missed you out there.”

  I let a laugh slip. “Really?”

  “Really.” He sounded certain. At least certain enough that I wasn’t willing to argue with him.

  “You followed me back here because you missed me?” I asked, my voice raspy with nervousness.

  “Yes. That’s what I said.”

  “Was there something you needed? Out of beers already?” I asked.

  “No nothing like that.” His lips brushed over mine without touching my skin. “I wanted to see if I was right.”

  My heart pounded. Thank God there was blaring music and a bar full of people celebrating the Sharks’ win or he would hear what he was doing to me.

  “Right about what?”

  “How it would feel to kiss you.”

  My eyes grew wide as I drew a ragged breath.

  Before I could return his surprising answer with a smartass comment he ran his fingers over my lips and slowly dragged them down between my breasts. I sighed with lust. So much fucking lust. He stopped just shy of the waistband of my cutoffs and wrapped his other arm around my waist.

  “H-how … ” I squeaked out as his fingers slipped under the hem of my shorts.

  Even in the dark I could see his perfect sexy grin.

  “Nice. Cotton panties? That's a first.”

  I could barely control my breathing. “I’m not your type.” And I wasn’t. I’d never done anything close to this before. Why was I doing it now?

  “I think we both know we’re incompatible for anything in life outside this bar, but in here…” He kissed my throat. “In here we could be fucking incredible.”

  “What do you want to do?” I asked naively. I wanted to hear him say it. I wanted to know.

  “Everything,” he whispered in my ear and I could feel the sudden wetness between my legs. My breathing was erratic and the only way I could keep my knees from buckling was to squeeze his arms as tightly as I could.

  “Do you always get what you want?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  “When I want something I go after it and I always get it, baby.”

  Oh God. He was an arrogant asshole. Cocky. Brash. And yet I was falling for it like a damn groupie. I was pinned against the wall, reveling in the feel of his body holding me in place.

  I rolled my eyes, needing to find some of my own strength buried somewhere inside me. “Did you really just say that to me?”

  He smiled and slipped his fingers past the fabric. My breath hitched and I moaned.

  “You do have a wild streak somewhere in there, don't you?” he asked as my wet warmth covered my fingers. I groaned as he slowly circled my clit and ran his finger to my entrance.

  “I-I can’t do this here. Were in a hallway.” I didn’t even recognize the raspiness of my own voice.

  “Call me Hawk. I want to hear my name on your lips when I give you an orgasm. You understand?” he asked as he plunged a second finger inside me.

  My head fell back against the wall. His fingers were thick and skilled. My hips jumped at every touch.

  “Do you want more? Do you want me to kiss you? Do you want me to fuck you? Tell me.”

  I laughed and he pressed my clit with his thumb, almost bringing me to my knees. Holy shit. The heat radiating off our bodies was palatable. I liked it and now, more than even I imagined, I wanted more.

  “Hawk, I can't do this,” I whispered, knowing I was clenching and gripping his fingers with sudden rhythm.

  “Why not?” he asked running his lips down my neck. My eyes closed from the intensity of everything we were doing.

  The eroticism of potentially being caught. The taboo of hooking up with a customer on my first night. The good girl in me craving this bad boy. Knowing everything about this was wrong. So wrong. There was nothing right about any of it except how good he made me feel in this moment.

  “Look at me. I want to see the lust in your eyes,” he commanded.

  I was lost in pleasure and sensation. His fingers had taken me to the brink of insanity. I had no thoughts. No power to make a rational decision. I was drawn to this man. This football legend. This sex god. This complete stranger like a moth to a flame. Hawk knew what he was doing when he made my body seize with pleasure. He knew what he was doing when he touched and kissed me. There was nothing sexier than that.

  Three

  Kane

  As she looked up at me she bit down on her lower lip and I was within an inch of losing wha
t self-control I had.

  “Babe, you have no idea how much I'd like to bend you over right here, right now and...”

  “What a gentleman,” she scoffed between breaths.

  “I have never claimed to be,” I replied, plunging my fingers into her deeper than before.

  She moaned low in her throat. I could feel her walls tightening around me getting ready to send her over the edge, but I refused to let her go. I slowed the tempo and pulled one finger out and then the second. She whimpered at the loss.

  Oh how I loved that sound.

  It was like a drug to me.

  She drew in a shallow breath, unable to speak. I smiled, knowing that I had her ready to spiral.

  “What if someone comes in this way? I don't want to be known as the girl who hooked up with Kane Hawkins in a hallway.” She sounded only slightly concerned.

  I brushed the hair from her shoulder. “So I was right? You do want me.”

  “Yes.” She paused. “No,” she said, averting her eyes from my stare. “Yes. I don’t know.”

  I took her hand, threading my fingers through hers and led her to the storage room.

  “This can be a very easy decision. Your decision, by the way.” I winked. “Tell me exactly what you want.”

  “Are you serious?” Her eyes widened. “We can’t go in there. I’m at work.”

  “Baby, you might not know this, but there are two things I never joke about—football and this.”

  She bit her lip in that sexy way again as I pulled her into the room with me. There was a long table on one side that was stacked with white paper takeout boxes. On the opposite wall was a tower of shelves overflowing with silverware, salt, pepper, napkins, and beer pilsners.

  The rest of the room was stacked with cases of beer and kegs. I looked at the table before locking the door behind us. It would work.

  I locked the door.

  “Right here?” She looked skeptical.

  My fingers flicked the button on her shorts as I shimmied them over her firm ass and toned thighs. I lifted her easily onto the table as she gasped at my quickness.

  “You’re fucking hot. You know that?”

  I dipped to kiss her, my tongue running between her lush soft lips. She purred under the kiss, sucking on my tongue, nipping at my mouth for more. Hell, she was a spitfire disguised as an angel. A beautiful angel I was going to spend the rest of the night with. My cock was hard against my jeans.

  My fingers found their favorite place between her slice of heaven. I circled once before she closed her eyes, biting down on her lip with pleasure. I exhaled in a growl and fought the urge to sink into her now.

  I ran my fingers between her slick folds, drawing deep thrusts from her hips. I kissed her harder, grabbing a handful of hair and smashing her mouth to mine. She tasted like the sweetness of rain. I had to know if the rest of her was just as sweet.

  I broke from her mouth, dropping to my knees. She started to protest, but I yanked her ass toward the edge of the table, propped her feet on my shoulders, and ripped the thin cotton panties off her thighs.

  “Oh God.” Her head reeled back in passion.

  I wanted every bit of her swollen clit. I teased it with my tongue, flicking with quick strokes. Her juices flowed freely and I grinned. Everything about this was going to be epic.

  “God,” she muttered.

  “That’s right, baby,” I growled before sucking her clit with controlling force. Her heels dug into my shoulders and she jutted forward, spreading her wide for my access.

  I licked and lapped. Stroked and pumped until she panted.

  “I’m going to …”

  “Oh yeah.” My dick was so hard I thought I’d come like this too. Watching this beautiful woman lose it from my tongue.

  I pumped my fingers inside her, widening them as my tongue stroked her clit. I was generous in bed. Or in the back of a bar. I wanted her to come as many times as humanly possible.

  Her breathing was heavy and throaty. “Hawk, oh God.”

  I reached for my zipper as the first wave of her orgasm started to roll. I wanted to feel this. The constricting walls of her pussy squeezing my cock. Just a taste. I wanted to be inside her once or twice in this ecstasy.

  Her pussy tightened around my fingers. She was so close I could feel it building in her. Her breath was coming in short small gasps.

  “Come for me. I want to feel you.” I freed my dick just as her eyes opened and landed on my monstrous erection. I was going to make it so we would be breathless and senseless with just a little taste.

  I rose from my knees. Keeping one hand pumping in and out of her, the other guiding my cock to her tight heated paradise.

  “Hawk,” she whimpered.

  “Is that what you want? You want me?”

  She nodded. “I swear I’ve never done this. But, please…”

  She didn’t have to explain to me how ecstasy had taken her off a cliff. It was driving her towards an edge she’d never experienced before. I got it. I knew it. I wanted to give it to her.

  “You’re fucking gorgeous. Do you know that.”

  I was so close to pushing inside her.

  One.

  Two.

  Three pumps of my fingers. I nudged the tip of my cock against her opening. I hissed at the fire between her legs. She was hot as lava.

  And then we heard it. Our heads jerked. There was loud banging on the door. The fist to wood sound that hammered into both of us. Fuck. Who in the hell was ruining this perfect symphony?

  “Hawk? You in there, you bastard?”

  Julie’s eyes darted to mine in complete fear and I wasn’t sure she wasn’t in pain. She was on the brink of having an epic orgasm delivered by Kane Hawkins. No one should be deprived of that. She scooted back on the table, looking for something to cover herself while in a state of panic.

  I pressed a finger to my lips, silencing her.

  She shook her head rapidly.

  “It’s ok,” I whispered.

  “What, Joe? I’m on the phone!” I yelled through the door.

  The handle jiggled. Bastard was still trying to get in.

  “You’ve got a situation out here.”

  “What is it?” I had a fucking situation in here. I was going ready to spend ten minutes in nirvana and he was cock-blocking me.

  Julie had quietly stepped one foot and then another to the floor and reached for her shorts.

  “Kennedy’s here,” he announced.

  “Damn it,” I muttered. “I’ll be right out.” I stretched my legs, trying like hell to adjust myself when it was nearly impossible.

  I waited a second to make sure Joe was no longer in the hall before cracking the door. “He’s gone,” I reported.

  “Kennedy?” Julie asked.

  I rubbed the back of my head. “She’s nobody.”

  “I bet,” she huffed, pulling the shorts over her tan legs. The scowl on her face was surprisingly sexy.

  I held up the pair of torn panties. “Forgetting something?” I teased.

  She glared at me, trying to snatch them from my hands.

  “I think I’ll keep these as a souvenir.” I stuffed them in my pocket.

  Her mouth opened in surprise. “Give them back.”

  “You can have them back when we finish what we started,” I offered.

  She re-tied her waitress apron and tried to brush past me. “It shouldn’t have happened. It got out of hand.”

  “It didn’t even get close to where it needed to go, baby.” I waggled my eyebrows at her.

  I could tell she was still trying to calm her breathing. I had the same problem. My cock was a rod of steel in my pants and wanted to burst free and take this pretty girl.

  I slipped a hand over her hip, drawing her toward me. I tipped her chin upward. I couldn’t help it. Kennedy was waiting. Joe was waiting. But I hadn’t had enough. I needed her lips. The taste of her tongue. And I was ready to do anything for another one of those fiery comebacks from her s
assy mouth.

  Four

  Julie

  His mouth was over mine and I felt a growl vibrate from his chest. My knees weakened and everything in my core tightened again in an instant. I relaxed into his arms, falling into his powerful hold. His tongue flicked against mine and I thought for a second that I could kiss this man forever.

  I didn’t care if I was in the back of a bar. Or that it could cost me this job. The job I took to help cover the rest of my bills. None of that seemed to matter when his tongue danced in perfect rhythm anywhere on my body.

  He broke the kiss and I felt the quick plunge of regret sink in my stomach. What the hell had I done?

  “I’ve gotta go, baby.” He tapped the tip of my nose. “Raincheck?” He winked.

  There was no way in hell I was going to end up fucking some huge American Football Association star next to a stack of Styrofoam containers.

  I nodded my head too eagerly. Everything in me ached. I was so close to coming in the most amazing and erotic way. I didn’t want to admit it had been way too long since a man had made those kinds of sounds emanate from my throat. I’d almost lit on fire the instant he touched me. Hawk was sexy and hot. He was a playboy. And he had made me break any and all rules I had ever lived by.

  He stepped toward the door. “Count to ten or something before you walk out,” he instructed.

  “Fine.” I didn’t want to sound like a bitch. It wasn’t his fault. It was my own for letting him drag me back here.

  Now he had my panties in his pocket. I was turned on more than I ever had been in my life and I doubted I could ever ease that pain without him. Damn it.

  He closed the door and I was left alone in the supply room to face the reality of what I had almost just done.

  I yanked my phone from one of the apron pockets and quickly typed his name into the search engine. I realized I should research the man I almost had my first one-night stand with. I should know more about him than I did.

  My jaw dropped when I saw the list of headlines. Shit. Shit. Shit.