Game Changer, page 14
“No worries. I’ve got your back.”
After we hang up, another text chimes.
Grumpy Baller: Meet you out front in an hour.
I go to my closet and pull out the dress I brought for tonight. It’s short and silver with tiny straps, and the bottom hits mid-thigh. It’s a little over the top, especially with the silver shoes Brooke gave me.
After the game, I showered and washed my hair, blow drying it straight before setting it in soft waves.
Now, I do my makeup—smoky eyes and nude lips.
The effect is pretty damn good. When I step into the dress and heels, I’m bubbling with nervous anticipation.
I grab my leather jacket and toss it on before sneaking a look at myself in the mirror. I look hot and sophisticated, but I still feel like me.
When I get down to the car, Clay looks up at me from his phone, and his expression goes slack. “You’re gorgeous.”
The words are soft and edgy, like a curse muttered under his breath.
“You look good yourself.” I take in the button-down shirt that clings to his muscled chest and shoulders, the dark pants hugging his hips.
He holds the back door of the limo for me, and I shift inside.
“Where are we going?”
“Dinner but I need to make a stop first.” Clay takes up half the back seat of the limo. “I was watching you tonight in the stands.”
“Oh, is that why we lost? I’ll send Coach a fruit basket as an apology.”
Clay chuckles, his entire chest rumbling.
“You looked like you guys were getting into it.”
“We have different ideas about how to solve problems. Plus, Rookie should’ve been better.”
“Will you talk to him about it?”
“He’s got to figure some shit out on his own.”
Clay pulls my back to his front, a strong arm around my ribs. Arousal dances in my stomach.
I think of Brooke’s words about having fun.
I shift in my seat, crossing one leg over the other.
His touch skims down my side to my thigh, slipping toward the hem of my dress.
My breath catches as his fingers inch higher.
“Show me what’s under here,” he rasps.
“I got them for you.”
I lift the edge of my skirt to reveal the thong I bought with the LA team’s logo.
“You’re fucking kidding me.” His voice is strangled. “I told you there’d be consequences if you showed up wearing someone else’s number again.”
“There’s no number on these,” I say helpfully.
Clay buzzes up the panel between the seats.
“This drive just got longer.”
The hairs on my neck lift as he wraps an arm around me and drags me over him, his front to my back.
Then he rips my underwear off and buzzes the window down, tossing them outside before I can protest.
“That was unnecessary,” I say.
“It was entirely necessary,” he murmurs against my neck.
He’s like granite under me, the ridges of his stomach through his shirt and my dress. But it’s his fingers playing with the soft skin at the inside of my thigh that make me pant.
Clay slides his hand between my legs, making a sound of approval.
“You’re wet.”
My head falls back against his shoulder.
He’s so big and hard I can’t even think of where I am, much less that there’s a chauffeur in the front seat. I grind my ass against him, seeking relief, and he presses his mouth to the side of my neck, his stubble grazing my skin with a scrape of sensation.
“You’ve been wanting this all day, haven’t you?”
“Mmm.”
“Tell me who this is for.”
He swipes a finger through my wetness, and I bite my lip to stop the groan.
“The limo,” I whisper. “I get hot for a car with an L-couch for a back seat.”
“The limo,” he repeats. “You like the idea of being pushed into these leather seats. You want that sweet body teased until you make a sticky mess.”
“Yes,” I say, my head spinning.
“How about this finger?” He hooks a digit inside me with a soft stroke.
I gasp at the feel of him filling me. “I love that finger.”
“That’s my girl.”
The limo drives a few more blocks, and Clay’s breathing speeds up as he fingers me, my hand in his lap, coaxing him through his pants.
He’s so hard.
He’s going to fuck me.
I have to have him.
I reach for the button of his slacks.
He grabs my wrist, pinning it down at my side.
“Not yet.”
I try to shake him off. “I want you.”
“Not here.”
He’s huge and determined. My fingers dig into his arms as I arch my hips to ride the feeling.
I groan.
His thumb brushes my clit. “Tell me again who this is for.”
I didn’t realize how spun I’ve been the past few days without him.
His fingers withdraw, and I want to cry.
“It’s for you.”
His lips brush my ear. When he speaks, he’s gentle and tortured at once. “Good girl. You think I haven’t thought about taking you every way there is?”
He presses his fingers to my mouth, and I suck on them. I’m drunk on his words and my own taste.
“Every damn way.” His fingers go back between my legs.
My clit swells as he rubs again, pumping his fingers in and out. My hips arch wildly, but he binds me against him, his arm like rope.
“This is what you asked for, Pink. Wearing another team’s colors under your skirt.”
It’s more than I wanted. More than I can take.
“When you come on my fingers, you'll coat every inch of me.” His voice is a dirty rasp. “So, there’s no question who you’re coming for.”
There’s no way I won’t.
He slips a third finger inside me, and I’m so full and so wet I cry out.
His mouth sucks on my neck, his teeth dragging.
“You know how it feels to watch you walk around practice with your damn sketchbook, so fucking sweet, and imagine you dropping it so I can watch you pick it up? To see that perfect ass and imagine all I could do to it?”
He fucks me harder with his fingers. The sound of it fills the limo.
“Oh God.”
It starts at my core. It’s like I need to expand but can’t because he’s holding me so tightly, his fingers not letting up.
“Clay!” I bite my tongue to keep from screaming.
His voice is so deep and hoarse I barely recognize it. “Come for me, Nova.”
The climax rips through my body in a wave.
I come so hard that the limo rocks.
It’s so powerful I’m wrecked.
But he doesn’t let up. He continues to rub my clit with his thumb. The pressure is almost too much as I’m still coming down.
I reach for his hand to make him stop, but he grabs my wrist and pins it behind my back. The car moves forward, and I’m lost again.
“I’ve wanted to watch you come since the first day I saw you.” He’s so close to my ear his words are a vibration that has me panting. “I’ve wanted to hear you scream my name.”
He pushes two fingers back inside of me, and I mewl.
I’m at his mercy, and I love it.
He’s taking me apart, leaving me with nothing to hold on to.
His lips brush my ear. “Again.”
“I can’t,” I whimper.
“You can.” He commands it. My head falls back against his shoulder again. My entire body is tight and hot.
“Come on, baby.” Clay’s breath is hot against my skin. “Come for me.”
My hips rise as my stomach sinks, and a second orgasm rips through me.
It’s so powerful, so intense, I can’t hear anything but the ringing in my ears.
Only Clay and his demand that I give him everything.
Only the pulse of his fingers deep inside me.
The limo comes to a stop, and Clay pulls his fingers from me. He grabs a cloth napkin from the door and wipes his hands.
He gathers my hair off my neck and presses his mouth there. “Next time, it won’t be my fingers. And that’s a fucking promise.”
I shiver as he helps smooth my hair back into place.
I don’t realize the car has pulled to a stop until he holds out a hand.
“I get one every year. Mark the end of one season and the start of another,” Clay says as I look up at the sign for Ink and Glory after he helps me out and I adjust my dress, my core still thrumming.
“Figured you see me so well that you could help me pick it out.”
The idea that he’d include me in this floors me. He keeps his cards close, and the ink on his body is as close to a tapestry of his feelings as anything you’re likely to find.
My heart swells. “I’d love to.”
We look at some designs, but I don’t like any of them.
Finally, I get an idea and call over the artist. He starts to sketch based on my description, and Clay watches.
“A mountain,” I declare when it’s done.
“For Denver,” Clay reads, skeptical.
“No. Because they’re the kind of strong the world can’t break down. Not wind or rain or snow. They’re weathered, but that only makes them more beautiful. Like you.”
He takes me in, emotion flitting behind his eyes. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Can you get it now?” I ask Clay.
He shakes his head. “We’d miss dinner.”
“I’m okay with that.”
Clay studies me a long moment, then cuts a look at the artist.
“Where’d you find her?” the artist asks Clay half an hour later.
“Wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Clay looks over at me under his dark lashes, and we exchange a grin.
Since the artist started to prep his tools, I’ve been peppering him with questions about his pigments and technique and what it’s like to work on a human canvas.
Now, I’m sitting in a visitor’s chair with my dress tugged down as far as possible thanks to the no underwear situation.
Clay is sitting astride another, elbows across the back as the mountain range is etched into his shoulder.
The buzzing of the needle blurs with the downtempo music from the speaker in the corner, a quiet symphonic background for what I’m witnessing.
It’s beautiful.
The ink appears in soft strokes across Clay’s smooth skin.
I thought the blood would bother me, but there’s hardly any, and it’s wiped away fast in a two-handed dance as elegant as any ballet.
Normally, the artist’s calendar is booked for months, but apparently, he does all of Clay’s tattoos, and he’s the only client the artist would take on a walk-in basis. Especially on a Friday night.
“You decide what tattoo you want yet?” Clay asks, his face turned toward me.
He doesn’t flinch or give any indication of the pain he’s in. I wouldn’t expect anything else from him.
“I thought it would be easy, but there are so many options.” I glance around the studio, where art is mounted on every available surface. There are simple hearts and stars and banners along with photos of realistic faces, detailed mosaics and landscapes. “That’s why you get one every year.”
His eyes crinkle. “I get one every year because I’m in a different place. And it blurs together, but I don’t wanna forget what got me here.”
It humbles me even more that he let me help him pick one out. A tattoo to mark who he is, in this moment.
“You should’ve told me the assignment when I helped pick yours out,” I chide him.
He rubs a hand over his jaw. “Nah. You aced it.”
Clay orders dinner for the three of us, and on a break, we eat tacos wrapped in foil, as delicious as they are messy.
He also ordered me a bottle of wine delivered with chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert, so I’m riding a happy buzz.
When the artist stands up to stretch and use the bathroom, it’s the two of us.
“Well?” Clay asks.
I inspect his back. There’s a sun just appearing over the ridge.
“Is it rising or setting?” I ask.
“You tell me.”
“Rising,” I decide, and he grins.
Once the tattoo is complete and covered, and we've said goodbye to the artist, we head back outside onto the sidewalk.
“I figured we’d see more stars,” I say as we amble down the street.
“The city is too bright. Not like Red Rocks.”
“No. But it’s still beautiful.”
There’s a text from Mari saying she hopes I enjoy my mini trip, plus a picture of her and Harlan.
They look in love, and my heart squeezes. They have everything.
Is it so crazy to want that, too?
Not the perfect job or the man in a suit or the ring, but the happiness.
I tip my face up to stare at the sky.
He threads his fingers through mine. “I need to tell you something.”
My heart accelerates. “Okay.”
“I’m working on a trade to LA.”
I stop walking and stare at him.
Guilt clouds his expression as I try to process what those words mean.
The most obvious one is he’s not staying in Denver. He’s switching sides, joining the same men who were his opponents tonight. Moving to this place of glitter and palm trees.
It hits me hard in the chest, though I can’t point to exactly why. I’m not the one losing him, but it feels like a betrayal. “Does Harlan know?”
“No. And you can’t tell him,” Clay says firmly.
“Because you have a problem with him.”
His lip curls. “Only problem I have is one he caused.”
“Which is what, exactly?”
He shoves a hand through his hair but doesn’t answer.
My head is still spinning about the rest of it as I pace the sidewalk. “I thought it was Harlan’s job to sign off on that stuff.”
“But he doesn’t need to know I’m working on it until he gets an offer he can’t refuse. Locker room rumors sink a team faster than anything, and I won’t do that to the guys.”
I get his reasoning, but hiding doesn’t feel good. “I don’t want to lie to my sister again.”
“Aren’t you already doing that by sneaking around with me?” Clay grabs my arms and spins me to face him.
I frown. “Why did you even tell me if you were going to put me in this position?”
He strokes my cheek with his thumb. “I guess because I’m used to keeping shit inside, and it feels good to tell someone. Plus, I don’t like keeping it from you.”
His words, or the vulnerability in them, make my frustration evaporate. What was going to be a hard decision is suddenly obvious.
“Then I won’t say anything,” I whisper.
Clay stills, his eyes widening with relief. “You mean it.”
“Yeah.” My lips curve.
He glances over his shoulder. “Come back to my room.”
There’s an urgency in his voice.
“That’s not against the rules?”
He drags my mouth up to his, kissing me until I’m breathless. “I don’t give a fuck.”
24
CLAY
“All clear?” Nova whispers.
I look both ways. “For now.”
We sneak down the hall to my hotel room. I fumble with my card before the light blinks, and we trip inside.
“Wow. This is what it’s like to live the high life.”
I can’t help grinning. Some girls would care about amenities, want to hook up with me on the road in a five-star hotel.
She’s not here for that.
Nova takes a tour, observing every inch of my one-night home while I observe her.
She’s so beautiful. It’s not only her pink hair and bright eyes and full lips. Not even her breasts that feel small and perfect in my hands or the addictive scent of her skin.
It’s her openness and acceptance. How she’s game for anything and finds the sunshine on the darkest day.
Nova opens my fridge, eyes widening. “Holy. You could open a bar.”
She takes one bottle after another and sets them out.
“I’ve never even heard of this,” she says, inspecting a label.
“You want it?” I ask.
She turns it in her hands. “I had enough wine with dinner. But the bottle is pretty.”
“Take it then. If you think it’s pretty.”
Nova smiles and sets it down. Then she lifts the lid of the silver pail nearby. “Huh. There’s even ice in the bucket.”
I shrug. “Turndown service.”
She shakes her head as if it’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard of. “So, you can’t make your bed or unmake it without help? You’re clearly overpaid.”
Fuck, this girl is wild. I’m hanging on her every word.
The way she came apart under my hands in the limo was one thing. I was tempted to keep the car circling all night so I could pin her down on the seat and make her lose her mind until the only word she knew was my name.
But the fact that she promised to keep my secret means more.
People smile in my face all day long, but those who genuinely have my back are few and far between.
“Is your balcony connected to the others?” Nova opens the drapes and peers outside, oblivious to what’s going on in my head.
“Yeah.”
I come up behind her, and her body warms me.
“But here…” I place my hands on either side of her, my groin pressing against her back. “Glass feels thick enough to muffle the sounds.”
Her head turns, her profile sheer temptation. “What sounds are those? You laughing at my jokes?”
“More like you moaning my name while I fuck you. Fast the first time, slow the second. The third, I’ll let you choose,” I murmur, claiming her lips from behind.
She tastes like wine. She’s pliable, too, a little extra relaxed. I adjust her to face me, banging my leg into the window in the process.
