by Jessa Kane
“Eric,” I gasp, no idea what I’m asking for.
Do I want him to keep going so I can climax this way?
And I will—I’m only seconds away.
Or do I want him inside of me?
Yes.
As soon as I have the thought, I become almost blind with eagerness. I make a whimpering sound in my throat and Eric correctly interprets what it means. His tongue leaves me along with his fingers, my legs almost collapsing from the loss, but then he’s standing behind me, shoving down his shorts with a growl and plowing his big smooth shaft into me, the force of his entrance slamming me up against the door.
“Oh my God,” I scream through my teeth.
“Jesus Christ!” He punches the door above my head, thrusts me up onto my toes and flattens me, rattling the door in its frame. “What am I going to do with this tight, tempting little pussy, huh? Should I fuck it?”
“Yes,” I sob, clawing at the door. “Yes!”
He wraps a sweaty forearm around my hips and punches upward several times, our flesh smacking together, his teeth bared against my ear. “Sitting on the sidelines flashing me that wet cunt. Making me insane. You’re lucky I didn’t put my cock in your mouth, right there in front of your father. Would you have sucked your new Daddy in front of your old one, angel?”
I’m seeing stars. Can’t form words to save my life.
He’s taking me roughly, angrily, and it feels so good, I’m simultaneously begging for the orgasm, while wanting to stave it off as long as possible. To let this delicious, pounding torture continue. The fact that I have a full bladder is somehow heightening the pleasure of his hard sex inside of me, the added weight pushing down on my erogenous zones, the pressure perfect. Blissful. So incredible I find myself grinding my hips back to meet his drives, doubling the impact, setting off sparks of light behind my eyes. “Harder, harder, please.”
Eric’s erection leaves me and I’m spun around again, lifted against the door and entered a second time with a triumphant grunt. My legs circle his hips haphazardly, trying to find purchase when he’s wailing on me, taking me so hard, the door bangs loudly with every surge of those chiseled hips.
“Yeah. You love this dick, don’t you, little girl?” His breath is hot on my neck, his grazing teeth sending tingles to my core, signals that the end is near. “Good. You’re going to be getting a steady diet of it. Up that baby girl ass, down your throat, in this tight motherfucker of a hole between your thighs. Mine. All of that is mine. Do you understand me?”
“I understand,” I whimper, my head falling back.
Slapslapslapslap.
He’s bouncing me now, the momentum of his pumps picking up, his hips ramming mine into the door, his grip bruising beneath my knees where those extra-large hands hold me open, accessible to his lust. “Eric,” I moan.
“It’s time to catch my sperm, you horny little thing,” he growls into my ear, hips pistoning madly. “Here they come. Welcome them home like a good girl.”
I’m already close to my peak just hearing those words, knowing he’s about to break. But then Eric reaches down and fondles my clit and I accelerate toward the edge, my knees jerking up and wedging beneath his armpits, his final drive grinding me into the door, both of us groaning like animals as the moisture leaves him, traveling into me with thick gushes. His lower body jerks with every one, my core spasming around him, fingers clawing, male hands clutching. Mouths open and panting against each other. There is no way to describe the euphoria, only that it’s like having the tension raked from my body while my chest fills with a new kind of tightness. Affection. As we come down from heaven, clinging to each other, I can barely stand the calamitous shift in my chest. Love. I’m feeling…love.
I’m caught so off guard by the emotion, I start to push him away, trying to disengage, but Eric only holds me tighter, flattening me more securely against the door. “I feel it, too, Greta,” he says hoarsely. “Let it happen.”
“Scary,” I gasp, one word all I can manage.
“You’re safe with me.” He lays kisses all over my face. “You’re home.”
That single word intoxicates me and I believe him. Trust him enough to look him in the eye and let him see the rearrangement taking place in my chest. The expansion of my heart as it includes him, allows him to burrow deep. He is still planted between my thighs and the longer we look at each other, the more I feel him beginning to thicken again. We start to breathe faster and he drives upward slowly, so deep that my legs tremble, a cry leaving my mouth. But we don’t break eye contact, his male vulnerability on display even as he takes me like a possessive master, pinning me to the door with every roll of his hips.
We’re so sensitive, it only takes a minute for both of us to come again and it’s less explosion this time, more of a desperate, grinding reach, his teeth burying in my neck, fingers digging into my backside while I moan his name.
Seconds later, I’m limp against him, his mouth planting kisses in my hair when a bellow rips down the underground passages of the arena.
“Bentley!”
That’s my father’s voice.
We both stiffen at the raw, angry sound of it and I search Eric’s face questioningly. “Do you think he’s angry about the way we snuck off?”
For some reason, Eric looks concerned, a groove forming in his forehead. “I don’t know. I’ll go find out. You stay here, all right?” He strokes a hand down my hair. “You look like you’ve been assaulted.”
I kiss his chin. “Only in the best way.”
One corner of his mouth lifts in a lopsided grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m all for Rick knowing who you belong to, but if he’s already pissed about something, the bite mark might put him over the edge.”
Laughing softly, I swipe some of my tinted lip gloss from his mouth. “Good point. I’ll wait here.”
Eric looks a little concerned, but I try not to let that worry me. As soon as he steps out into the hallway, I begin to straighten my clothes, covering the love bites as best as possible with limited clothing. But I pause in the act of smoothing my hair when Eric and Rick’s voices clash right outside the supply room door.
“I bet you thought I wouldn’t notice—”
“Let’s talk about this somewhere private,” Eric interrupts him.
“No. You’ve jerked me around enough. This is an eight-figure contract, Bentley. It’s the keys to the kingdom. And you signed it with a phony name?”
A phony name?
Why?
This…this doesn’t have anything to do with me, does it?
Eric agreed to sign the contract with LA. He agreed to do that without me giving in to his demands to become his wife. I was given a choice. Wasn’t I? Did he give himself a failsafe in case I decided I wasn’t interested?
“This was about Greta, wasn’t it?” Rick sneers. “Bought yourself a little insurance with my daughter?”
Eric’s heavy silence confirms my theory.
Ice encases my chest and I back away from the door, struggling to fill my lungs with air. “No…”
“Bring me the contract,” Eric says stiffly. “I can fix what I did.”
“You bet your ass you’ll fix—”
“Watch how you talk to me, Rick,” interrupts the point guard, his voice deadly quiet. “You’ve thrown your fit. Now don’t throw away your best shot at a title.”
Even though the door is closed, I can picture my father backing down, palms out, his anger shrinking in the face of winning. “I’ll go get the contract. We’ll get this taken care of and put it all behind us.”
My father’s footsteps carry him down the hallway. Once they fade, several seconds of silence tick by before the door to the supply room opens and Eric is standing there, watching me silently, from beneath hooded eyelids. His energy is charged and wary—and it should be. I’m crumbling inside. He lied to me. Told me I was making the decision to be with him, when all along he was maneuvering his options behind the scenes. Just like
every athlete I’ve ever met. Just like my father.
I can’t quite prevent my lower lip from trembling when I whisper, “You’re the same as the rest of them.”
Eric
She says the words that rip the heart straight out of my chest.
Because she’s right. I knew the reckoning was coming as soon as I heard Rick shouting my name angrily. They say hindsight is twenty-twenty and this is proof. I could have won her without being deceitful, but now I’ve fucked up the best thing I’ve ever had or will ever have again, haven’t I? I’ve lost her trust, that’s what kills me the most of all. I only had it, truly had it, for a matter of moments before my mistake tore it away.
You’re the same as the rest of them.
No. I want to shout the denial. But how can I? When she was a child, her father paid off her mother for custody in the divorce. I know how much that gutted her. And I forced her father into doing it again, hurting her worse. When that wasn’t enough, I left myself a way to manipulate the situation. How can I deny being exactly like the men she’s avoided all her life? Men who maneuver women like toys.
“Don’t say I’m like them,” I choke out. “Please.”
The tears in her eyes reflect my agony and regret back at me. “Were you going to corner me if I decided not to stay with you?”
Emotion presses against the sides of my throat. “I’d do anything to have you. To keep you. I won’t lie about that.”
“You’d do anything except for the right thing.”
I can see that I’m about to lose her and it incites madness inside of me. There is no fucking way. No way I could go on without her now that I know she exists. Life would be a colorless charade. Forget playing basketball, I wouldn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. “Scream at me. Claw me bloody.” I close the distance between us in two giant strides, cradling her beautiful face in my hands. “Get it out of your system, but don’t leave me, Greta.”
Moisture forms in my eyes and the sight of her sadness, disappointment in me, almost drops me to the floor. “Sign the contract with the right name,” she says haltingly. “Without conditions. Let me go.”
My heart lurches painfully. “Impossible.”
“I don’t care what deal you arrange with my father, I won’t stay with you.”
“Yes. You will.” I pick her up and crush her to my chest, inhaling the scent of her hair, doing my damnedest to absorb her into my body, but she just stays limp, eyes closed. She won’t react, won’t put her arms around me and it’s the worst punishment she could have devised. Refusing to show emotion, to touch me. “Angel, I know I fucked up. But this thing between us isn’t going away. I’ll never give up.” I kiss her neck, raking my mouth into her hair, relieved when she gasps at the pleasure. “I’ll show up at your door every goddamn day until you forgive me. You’ll choose me again.”
She shows a burst of spirit, twisting free of my arms and pushing me away. “Don’t hold your breath.”
If her voice didn’t crack at the end of that order, chin wobbling, I would have reached for her again. I don’t, though. I can see I’ve really hurt her. She’s betrayed. And there are no right words, no right touches to make it better. Misery hollows me out and I fall back against the wall, unable to stay upright when faced with the reality of losing her. “I’m sorry, Greta. I’m so sorry.”
With a sniffle, she pushes out of the equipment closet, coming face to face with her dad. He splits a look between us and hands me a pen. I could maneuver this to my advantage. My talent gives me leverage, but I won’t use it. I can’t coerce her again and leave another wound. When Greta crosses her arms and looks at me pointedly, I have no choice but to take the pen and sign my name—my real name—below the phony one. And when she walks away, she takes my hope, my heart, my world along with her.
But if she thinks I’m giving her up without a fight, she’s dead wrong.
Chapter Eight
Greta
It was naïve of me to think that morning in the arena would be the last time I saw Eric. At least until I ran into him at a team function or maybe saw him on television during the season. The look of utter determination on his handsome face should have clued me into the fact that he wouldn’t give me up so easily. When I went to bed that night, he was sitting outside my apartment building, leaning up against his SUV. Watching my bedroom window like a hawk.
Closing the curtains didn’t help matters.
Roses started showing up at my apartment the next morning.
Dozens upon dozens of long-stem roses in every color. Boxes and boxes of designer activewear, which was so rude, because looking cute while dressing comfortable is totally my weakness. He sent me his championship ring from Denver—and knowing how much something so symbolic means to an athlete, that almost made me answer one of his hundreds of calls.
They are placed once an hour, on the dot, though he only leaves voicemails late at night, his voice having the opposite effect of a lullaby on my body. The notes of hunger arouse me to such a degree that I toss and turn until the sun rises in the sky, my eyes gritty, chest aching. I’m unfulfilled, restless. I…miss him. How can that be? After what he did? Why am I having such a hard time holding on to my anger?
It’s one such night a week later when I’m sitting on the edge of my bed in a towel that I start to slip. Eric was outside of my classes again today, looking outrageously hot, arm resting on the bottom frame of the driver’s window, eyes hidden behind mirrored black sunglasses. I thought the guys in my class were going to have heart attacks, running over and asking for autographs. He didn’t take his eyes off me once while signing them, his jaw in a permanent flex. So serious, so intense that the muscles below my belly button twisted up in a knot—and they have been that way ever since.
A couple of days ago, I tried touching myself in the shower, hoping to ease the mounting tension inside of me, but there is nothing…consuming about the act. Nothing momentous or life-affirming. Without Eric’s strong body pressed to mine, without his mouth on my neck, hands roaming, voice stroking my senses, everything is lackluster. Less than. He’s ruined me.
Pushing to my feet, I cross to the curtains and peek out from my bedroom down to the curb. Of course he’s there, staring back at me. Probably trying to decide what to send me next. The only sign that he sees me in the window is a line moving in his cheek, the upward slide of his Adam’s apple. And before I can guess my own intention, I’m letting the towel slide down to the floor, letting him see my naked body. Drawing his eye downward as I trail a finger from neck to belly button.
He’s striding to the door of my building before I reach any lower, the buzzer going off loudly in my living room. Adrenaline and anticipation nearly blind me, turning my legs so useless, I almost trip in my haste to reach the buzzer where I quickly press the button and unlock my door. Backing away from it. Waiting. Telling myself how very foolish I’m being, but too worked up to care.
As soon as Eric charges through the door like a bull and kicks it shut behind him, I say, “This doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
There is a flash of pain, disappointment, in his blue eyes, but he recovers quickly, advancing on me. Crashing his mouth down onto mine and backing me through the apartment toward my bedroom, his hands everywhere at once. My bottom, my breasts, roaming over my hips. “What do you need?”
The moment I stop trying to keep the physical hunger at bay, it roars in and attacks me from all sides, making me moan, trying to get my legs up around his waist. I’m shameful, naked, climbing him, whining and pulling at his hair. “You. I need you inside of me.”
“You need this big dick to have an orgasm now, don’t you?” He swats my ass with the flat of his hand. “Don’t you, angel?”
“Yes,” I pant, letting him molest my neck, my mouth. “Yes.”
He throws me down in the middle of my bed, his eyes boring into me as he unzips his jeans, shoving down the waistband of his briefs and pinning me with his full weight to the bed, ramming his shaft as
deep as it’ll go. He slaps a hand over my mouth at the last second—and thank God, because it sounds like he’s murdering me. Maybe he is. With pleasure instead of pain. The first two times he made love to me were child’s play compared to this animal mating, this rabid fucking. He’s actually hurting me between the legs he’s entering me so roughly, with such possession, but the good outweighs the twinges of pain by a thousand miles. It’s so intense and glorious and long overdue that I rip my nails down his back, digging my heels into his thrusting buttocks, screaming, screaming into our kisses.
My climax is right there. Careening down on me.
And so is his lust-crazed peak.
That large appendage is already jerking inside of me, his sweating upper lip beginning to curl almost maliciously, even while his eyes are bright on me, brimming with obsession. And then he leans down and speaks right against my mouth, uttering words that, until now, I’m unaware have the power to break me.
“You can’t have my come this time, Greta.”
I suck in a great gulp of air, denial firing like a cannon in my breast. “What?” I try to wrap my thighs around his hips, to keep him there, to give him no choice but to spend inside of me, but he snarls and holds my knees open, disallowing it. “Stop it, Eric. Why?”
He gives me a savage pump of his hard flesh into the soft wetness of mine. “You can cut me off, torture me by looking so fucking beautiful when I can’t touch, make me want to fucking die without you. I deserve it for making you cry, angel. But if you think I’m going to be your stud service without your heart as part of the deal, that’s not happening.” He slides a hand down my belly, petting my clit with his middle finger. “If you want Daddy’s come, you have to come home and get it.”
