* * *
Jamie undresses me and then lowers me to his bed, rolling me onto my side. He stands above me, staring down at me with hunger in his eyes as he slides his hand up my inner thigh. Even the slightest touch produces tiny bumps along my skin. Jamie drives me wild.
He climbs into bed behind me, inching his fingers further up my leg until they’re inside me. Testing my slickness, he drags his fingers in and out before he pulls them back. The sudden lack of his heat causes me to yearn for more.
Jamie rolls a condom on and then grips my ass, slamming into me in one quick thrust. I don’t have time to adjust to his size. He fills me, his cock so hard and thick, pushing further inside me. I can feel him everywhere. I didn’t realize how much I missed him, missed this closeness to him, until now. His hand creates a blaze of heat as he runs his fingers down my thigh, digging into my skin.
The pressure builds within, my insides so tight and ready to burst. “Jamie,” I whisper.
I tighten my hold on his cock, and he groans. “That’s it, baby.”
He knows how close I am and has me right where he wants. Jamie moves his hand under my chin, tilting my head back until our lips meet. He kisses me so intensely and with so much passion I can’t breathe.
I moan into his mouth, my orgasm building until it reaches its peak. After I come, Jamie flips me over and onto my stomach. Positioning himself behind me, he slams into me once more. This time, he’s rougher, more aggressive. From this angle, he hits the spot, and boy does he know how to work me.
I rest my forehead on the mattress and close my eyes. My insides clench around him, another orgasm commanding control over my body. Jamie clutches my hips tighter and goes deeper and deeper grunting with each thrust. The sounds he makes set my body on fire.
Once again, I find my release, about to come undone, and Jamie’s right behind me. His cock pulses inside me, a series of curses and sexy noises escaping his lips.
Jamie rubs his hand over my ass before he pulls out, my juices running down my thigh. I sink to the mattress and roll over, leaving room for Jamie to lie in the space next to me.
He pats the mattress. “C’mere.”
I crawl over to him and into his arms. His thick muscles flex around me, cocooning me in his warmth.
“I missed you, Shan.” Jamie kisses my forehead, his sweat mixing with mine.
I slide my hand up his stomach, feeling the defined ridges of his abs. “I missed you, too.”
“I need a shower,” he says. “You want to get in with me?”
“Not right now. I’ll take one when I get home.”
He frowns. “You’re leaving already?”
“No, not for a while. But I do need to go home tonight, I can’t stay over.”
He tries to hide his disappointment and fails. “Do you mind if I hop in the shower real quick? I won’t take long.”
“Go ahead.” I move over, giving him enough room to get out of the bed. “I can wait here.”
He slides off the bed, and when I look up at him, I can’t stop staring at his muscular body. My man might be a nerd, but he has the body of an athlete. I lick my lips, practically drooling over him.
He notices and acknowledges my dirty thoughts with a wink. “I’ll be right back.” His eyes roam over my naked body, and I open my legs to give him a better look. “Don’t move. I want you just like that.”
I smile. “You got it.”
He gives me a nice view of his ass as he lifts a towel from the hook on his door and wraps it around his waist. I sigh at the little show he puts on for me, and then he disappears into the hallway, closing the door behind him.
Five minutes pass and still no Jamie. He’s taking much longer than I expected. Most of the time, he’s in and out of the shower. Bored, I climb out of bed and walk over to his desk. I glance at the oversized pushpin board on the wall wondering if he has any more leads on The Queen. The last time I looked through his things, I found his searches for her IP address. As far as I know, he still hasn’t found her. The last time we spoke of her, he was having trouble narrowing her location.
I open drawer at the center of his desk, not sure what I’m looking for. My trust in him is dwindling. I want to give it back, but there’s a small part of me that’s unable to. Inside his drawer I find handwritten notes. None of them are of any value. Until I find something that matters… to Jamie.
He lied about the girl he kissed. Cecelia Carmichael is more important than Jamie had let on. The pictures and letters in his drawer serve as proof. He’s cupping the side of her face in this picture, staring at her with a loving expression in his eyes.
She’s not just his childhood friend.
No, she’s his girlfriend.
And what does that make me?
The other woman.
Chapter Fifteen
Jamie
I open the bathroom door, and Shannon is running down the stairs. From the sounds of it, she’s crying. What the fuck just happened? We made up, had amazing sex, and now she’s back to hating me again?
Wrapping the towel around my waist, I follow behind her downstairs, calling out her name. A few of my teammates are in the living room. They cock their heads in my direction, eyebrows raised when they see me in a towel running behind Shannon.
She doesn’t turn around when she flings open the front door.
“What did I do now?” I say, walking onto the front porch behind her.
“You lied, Jamie. You’re such a fucking liar,” she yells as she stumbles down the stairs, wiping tears from her eyes. “She’s not your friend.”
I grip her shoulder to spin her around, holding my towel in place with my other hand. “Okay, fine. Cece was my friend when we were kids, but we dated all through high school and up until my first year of college.”
“I knew it,” she snorts. “I thought maybe I was overreacting until I saw the shrine you have for her.”
Confused, I narrow my eyes at her. “What shrine?”
“The pictures and notes you have saved in your desk drawer.”
“You went through my stuff?” I shake my head, now even more irritated. “You had no right to do that. I would’ve told you the truth about Cece… eventually.”
“Eventually.” She sniffs back the tears she dabs at with her fingers. “I thought you were different, Jamie.” Her voice lowers, filled with grief. “I thought I could trust you. Turns out you’re no different than the rest of the rich assholes on this campus.”
“C’mon, Shan,” I plead. “This looks bad, but it’s not what you think. I’m done with Cece. It’s over for good. I want to be with you.”
“No, you don’t,” she snaps. “You want her. I deserve more than a lie. I saw the way you looked at her in the pictures. And you kissed her while you were with me.” She spins around out of my grasp. “Don’t call me. Don’t follow me.” Shannon stomps down the pathway. “Just leave me alone.”
“Fuck,” I growl, balling my hands into fists at my sides.
“You gonna stand out here all night in a towel?” Preston booms from behind me. “You’re giving the girls in the lacrosse house a show.”
I glance over at the house across the street where a group of girls are sitting on their porch staring at me. A few of them wave at me. One says, “Hello.” Annoyed, I raise my hand to wave, and then turn around to rush past Preston and into the house.
“What’s up with her?” Preston asks.
“She found out about Cece,” Tucker says from the couch in the living room.
“Shit, that sucks,” Preston says. “But you’re not with Cece… right? You better not be back with that bitch.”
“No, I’m done with Cece.” My tone is defensive. “She kissed me. I didn’t kiss her back. I told Shannon Cece is a friend from my past. She went through my desk and found some old pictures of me with Cece, and that’s what all the drama’s about.”
“You shouldn’t have lied,” Preston says, following me upstairs. “Women always sniff that shit
out, and then it comes back to bite you in the ass.”
“Tell me about it,” I shoot back.
I enter my bedroom with Preston on my tail and go straight to my desk. Digging through the open drawer, I flip through the pictures of Cece and me that Shannon left on top. Just seeing Cece’s beautiful face makes my stomach do somersaults. My heart aches as I recall all the good times I had with her. But they never lasted long.
Every time I see Cece at an event, it reopens the old wounds. She claimed my heart so many years ago that sometimes it feels like it’ll never repair itself. We share a special connection, one I can’t deny.
Shannon’s amazing, beautiful, smart, and everything I ever wanted.
And nothing like Cece.
Which is a good thing.
I need time to process my feelings for Shannon. Maybe the break will do both of us some good. On the one hand, I have a girl who really gets me even though she’s the Devil. But on the other, I have a girl who’s incredible, and I’ve slowly been falling for her one day at a time.
Until I saw Shannon running out of the house, I didn’t understand how I felt about her. I need her in my life, but I’m torn between two women. Is it possible to love them both? Cece has the ability to crush me as she has done every time we get back together. And that’s also a problem because I need to get over Cece.
Preston rips the pictures from my hands and throws them in the trashcan next to my desk. “Forget about her, J. She’s a waste of time. The only person Cece cares about is herself.”
“My dad is merging with 10X Games,” I admit. Every instinct in my body wants to fish the pictures from the trash. “They’re absorbing my dad’s company.”
It’s the first time I’ve said it aloud. The news came as a shock, one I still haven’t adjusted to. My dad said it was a good move for our family and his company, but something was off about his explanation.
Preston gasps. “Why? That doesn’t make sense.”
I sink down on the chair and run my finger over the mouse, waking the computer monitors. “I wish I knew. I thought about snooping around to see what he’s hiding, but I don’t want to violate his trust.”
“What about Mike or Grace?” He sits at the edge of my bed, the mattress dipping from his weight. “Can’t you ask them? Or your mom?”
“I already did. Mike wouldn’t even tell me about the announcement until I heard it from my dad’s mouth while he was on stage at 10X Con. All of them have the same rehearsed answers. It’s like my dad coached them.”
“I don’t get it.” Preston tugs at the frayed seam of his shirt and sighs. “Your dad has always taken pride in the fact his company is family owned and run. Why would he sell it to Cece’s dad? He hates him.”
“I know.” I bite the inside of my cheek and pull the keyboard in front of me, hitting each key in anger. “She rubbed it in my face at the convention right before she kissed me. Cece never does anything without a plan. She knew the cameraman was there. It was too convenient that we had our picture taken at the exact moment she kissed me. I have this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach she’s somehow behind all of this.”
I do another Google search, what feels like the hundredth one since my dad made the announcement and scroll through the web pages discussing the merger. Shannon has no idea about the new development. Before Christmas, I was leaning toward working for my dad after graduation. Now, everything has changed. I’ll never work for Kevin Carmichael. My future cannot be tied to Cece.
Preston leans forward resting his elbows on his thighs while staring at me. “How is Cece behind the merger?”
I roll my shoulders against the chair and scan the contents of another new article. “Maybe I’m just paranoid.” For the first time in what feels like days or weeks, I laugh. “I sound like fucking a lunatic.”
Slowly, Preston nods, a mocking expression on his face. “You haven’t been yourself. Ever since The Queen started posting about us you’ve been… I don’t know… different.”
The thought of her alone causes me to grind my teeth together, and then something occurs to me. “A while ago when I was looking for The Queen, she sent me a video game.”
Preston’s eyebrows rise in curiosity. “What was it?” He gets up from the bed and moves toward me. “Let me see.”
“I can’t. As soon as my character died, it disappeared.”
He hovers over me, staring down at me with his hands on his hips, ticking his jaw. “Why would she send you a game?”
I look over my shoulder at the open door and slide my chair over to shut it. Spinning around to face Preston, I lower my voice. “The game looked like a rip-off of Doom, Diablo, and Mage Wars.”
“So?” Preston’s not following my train of thought. “What does that have to do with a blogger who’s keeping tabs on us?”
“I think she wrote the code to imply my dad copied Diablo and Doom. They’re two of the most iconic video games of all time. Diablo was the first real-time combat fantasy game. It also had randomized opponents, weapons, and dungeons which personalized it to the point that no user ever had the same experience. And Doom is one of the best first-person shooter games ever made. People still love it after all these years.”
“What does that have to do with The Queen?” Preston asks, taking his place on the bed again. “She likes old school video games? So what?”
“No, I think she’s trying to tell me that my dad stole some of his ideas from Doom and Diablo.”
“Ohhh…” Preston’s mouth widens in shock. “You don’t think…” he pauses. “No, he wouldn’t.”
“I mean if you really look for them, the similarities are there. Mage Wars is nothing like either of those games, but some of the older versions of The Fallen Universe have a lot of the same features, like the randomized-user experience.”
“Shit,” he mutters, biting his bottom lip. “Do you think that’s why your dad is selling his company?”
“I didn’t even think of that,” I say, still in awe over everything that’s happened over the last few weeks. “You think Carmichael has something on my dad and is forcing him to sell?”
He shrugs. “It would make sense. Your dad wanted you to help take over his company, so something must have changed. Your dad has tons of money. He’d never sell for financial reasons.”
“My dad couldn’t care less about money.”
He grew up without it, and for that reason, he could go back to living on welfare if he had to. My dad is an extreme minimalist. Every cent he makes goes back into a new product for his company. None of this makes sense.
“If The Queen knows something, you should look harder for her.”
I snort at his comment. “Fuck, you look harder. I’ve spent all of my free time tracking her. She’s too fucking good.”
“You’re better than her,” Preston challenges. “So stop acting like a spoiled billionaire who didn’t get his way and go after her.”
“I’m not a billionaire,” I counter. “And I’m trying my hardest.”
He rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Your dad is. Same thing.”
“Still, it’s not my money.”
Most of the time I pretend as though it doesn’t even exist. Money complicates things. It’s never been important to my parents even though they have it, and they instilled that into me. My dad always says we should live as if the money could disappear tomorrow. Sure, he has a huge house and expensive cars and gadgets, but he doesn’t live too lavishly.
Preston closes the distance between us and extends his hand to me. “C’mon, let’s get a drink.”
“You?” I shoot him a confused expression. “After all the shit you’ve given Tucker about drinking.”
He chuckles. “I just like breaking his balls.”
“I could use a drink,” I say, getting up from the chair. “Or two. I need to clear my head.”
Preston taps me on the back. “It’ll all work out, J. It always does.”
I wish I had his confidence right now. My
dad is losing his company. Our family’s fortune and future are now tied to the Carmichaels. On top of that, Shannon hates my guts. And somehow, Cece is at the heart of everything. I just need to figure out the missing piece.
Chapter Sixteen
Jamie
As if my life falling apart isn’t enough, Trent has just informed all of us that his girlfriend, Jemma, is pregnant. We sit in the living room staring at him like he has ten heads. I think I might be hallucinating because there’s no way Trent would make this big of a mistake.
“Pregnant,” Drake mutters. “Is it yours?”
Trent nods. “Yeah.”
Drake crosses his arms over his thick chest and nods. “You sure it’s not Tuck’s? He fucked her, too.”
“That was months ago,” Trent shoots back, his mouth twisted in anger. “It’s in the past.”
“Just sayin’,” Drake says. “It might not be yours.”
“What difference would it make?” Trent shakes his head, annoyed, blowing out a puff of air.
“We’re going out,” Tucker says, slapping Trent on the back. “Need to get this guy drunk. He’s gonna be a baby daddy.”
Trent snickers, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. He doesn’t speak, the life drained from his eyes. I’d have the same reaction if Cece or Shannon hit me with this kind of news. We’re so close to graduation and about to win another championship, so the timing couldn’t be worse.
The twins’ dad had a son when he was in high school. Uncle Tyler gave up Blake for adoption to pursue his professional hockey career. Trent must be thinking the same thing. Though his dad never lost contact with his first-born son, Blake’s still part of their family. His dad will never let Trent walk away from his responsibility, not after making one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
“Strip club?” Tucker asks the group.
We mutter in agreement, and slowly, the vibe in the room changes.
Two hours later, we’re in a private room at the back of Scores, a sports-themed strip club. I look over at my friends on the couches next to me realizing this is our last year together. Nights like this will be in the past after we graduate. Everything is changing.
Jocking Jameson: Face-Off Legacy #4 Page 10
