Dating the Player, page 12
I took her hand and yanked her in, fully clothed. She jumped around like she was on hot coals.
“My clothes…”
“Will be off in a minute,” I said, pulling her against my wet body and giving her a kiss.
For a second she resisted.
But then she sighed and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me back. “This is my favorite cat sweater,” she said. “And you’ve ruined it.”
“That makes no sense given that you have to wash it at some point.” I gripped the back of her jeans, rocking her forward onto my cock. “Besides, I like your pussy wet.”
Eloise laughed. “You’re impossible.”
I kissed her neck. “So I’ve heard.”
* * *
Eloise
* * *
Dak talked me down off the ledge with his casual attitude and total lack of concern. Not to mention what he did in the shower with his fingers, his tongue, and his cock.
After a ridiculous amount of room service arrived, he called housekeeping and had them take my soaking wet clothes to dry-clean and ship directly to me in New Jersey. Fortunately they were what I’d been wearing the night before, so not a big deal. Just a reminder that when you had gobs of money, nothing like that is particularly a problem. I’d been picturing moldy clothes upon arrival back home but Dak solved that concern.
He also convinced me the pictures from the weekend were no big deal. I actually had to agree with him. I did just look like his assistant.
Which, if I were honest with myself, a secret, girly part deep inside me was disappointed in that. That no one knew what we had shared. That it would be so easy for anyone to dismiss the possibility that we were a couple. I saved all of them to my camera roll anyway. I wanted to study them when I was back home, alone. Especially the one of him naked. Not only was he gorgeous, I knew he had just gotten out of bed. Hell, he’d just gotten out of me.
Even with our shower diversion, we made it to the airport on time, and now we were seated in first class again. Only this time, everything had changed. I had shared more intimacy with Dak than any other man I’d ever met, and it had been amazing.
Dak kept reaching over and touching my leg, then retreating. As if he kept forgetting he wasn’t supposed to touch me in public, yet wanted to. It made my heart swell.
A sudden thought occurred to me. “Hey,” I said. “What was your rule? The mystery thing I agreed to without even knowing what it was.” That had been stupid, truthfully. Probably equally as stupid was bringing it up again. He might have forgotten all about it. With Dak, the rule could be anything.
But he just shook his head. “There was no rule.”
I stared at him. “What do you mean? You said I had to agree to your rule, so I did.”
“There never was a rule, that’s what I’m saying.” He did it again, touched my leg. This time he even turned his whole body toward me so our faces were closer, and he entwined my fingers in his. “I made it up that there was one, because I just needed to know that you trusted me. I didn’t want to take your virginity if you didn’t completely trust me.”
I was astonished. Because that was the most astonishing and thoughtful thing he could have said. And I might have fallen in love with him right then and there. Just gotten swept over a cliff and dropped down into the ocean of love.
He was a good man. A great man, actually. He’d been nothing but amazing to me, even though he could also be arrogant, willful, and ballsy.
But he was kind, generous, considerate, and attentive.
He would make a great boyfriend someday, to the right woman. When he was ready. With someone who wasn’t me. Because in real life, the pro athlete didn’t end up with the Plain Jane nerd girl.
I felt tears in my eyes and I blinked hard. “Thank you,” I managed, my voice hoarse and tight.
His hand cupped my cheek and he brushed my hair back. “Hey. You okay?”
I nodded, afraid to open my mouth. Afraid if I did, I would say things I shouldn’t.
Dak kissed me, softly, quickly. In that moment, I didn’t care if anyone was watching, though I doubted they were.
“Spend the night with me tonight,” he said.
I shook my head. “Not tonight.” I couldn’t. It would be too emotional for me.
But I didn’t have the courage to say never.
He gave me a smile that hurt my heart. “Sure, Kitty.” Then he yawned. “I’m going to close my eyes. I didn’t get much sleep last night. You should do the same thing.”
I wasn’t sure if he was actually tired or if he wanted to avoid conversation, but there was no way I could sleep. I just sat there and went over every minute of the weekend, over and over, making sure I didn’t forget a single thing Dak had said to me. Still turned toward me, Dak did fall asleep, his mouth slightly open, his breathing even.
God, he was gorgeous. Even asleep. A weekend warrior, indeed. He’d definitely plundered my village the night before. I sighed and turned away, determined to stare out the window instead of at him. That lasted all of three seconds, then I glanced back over at him.
Damn it. I opened a reading app on my phone and tried to get sucked into a novel.
I was grateful that I had to put my phone in airplane mode. I couldn’t handle the questions from my co-workers. I wanted their respect and I wasn't sure how to respond to them.
The longer the flight went on and the closer we got to home, the bigger the knots in my stomach grew. We weren’t in a private hotel suite, playing a game. This was the real world. My world.
Dak slept the entire flight, which was both good and bad. Good, because I wasn’t further tormented and tempted. Bad, because this was basically the end of any intimacy with him and it was slipping away with each minute.
He woke up when we landed and shook his head like a dog to rouse himself. “Can I have my phone?”
“Sure.” I had confiscated it from him again after the selfie post that morning. “Behave yourself.”
“So you keep telling me.” He grinned. “I would think you’d know by now that’s like spitting in the wind.”
The door to the jetway opened. Dak stood up and stepped back into the aisle so I could go first. I glanced back at him. I wanted to say something, but I wasn’t sure what. He winked.
After we collected our bags, Dak insisted on driving me home. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”
He was good at that. And I was terrible at resisting him, anyway. I obediently went to his car with him and slipped inside the SUV when he opened the passenger door for me.
On the drive home he chatted conversationally about football and the playoffs and who was in contention. I participated because it was football and I always have an opinion and I think that was why he chose the topic. To make me feel comfortable. Was it possible that Dak actually got me? It really felt that way.
“You can just pull in here,” I said twenty minutes later, gesturing to the guest spot at my apartment building. “I can hop out.”
“I’ll walk you up,” he said.
He gave no explanation. It wasn’t even four o’clock yet, so it wasn’t dark out, but I didn’t mind because I wanted the weekend to linger. And I wanted to avoid all those text messages and DMs on my phone, one of which was from my mother wondering why I was in Tennessee. I might have failed to mention to her my work trip.
Dak looked like a giant in a doll’s house in my attic apartment. I liked the place because it was cozy, but he had to duck his head to get through doorways. My cats swirled around my ankles and eyed him with suspicion. It wasn’t like I ever really had men in my apartment, or at least not often. I didn’t even have friends over frequently because the space was so small. Eli and Peyton thought this was their domain and a six-foot-five male striding in put them in a foul mood.
“Hey, buddy,” Dak said, and bent over. Eli hissed at him. Peyton took a swipe. “Whoa. Okay, we’ll take it slow, guys.”
“They’re protective.”
“Guard cats, huh? That’s good. But animals like me. They’ll warm up.”
Always so confident. That was Dak. I, on the other hand, was mentally calculating how much money I had in my savings account and how soon before I’d have to start eating ramen if I got fired. I thought Dak was right and I did just look like his assistant, but I still wasn’t sure what Jeff Dimarco would think of my hand in Dak’s pocket.
“I’m glad I didn’t get that reception from your other pussy,” Dak said, raising his eyebrows up and down.
I rolled my eyes. Which was a good front, but even at his silly words I felt said-pussy growing damp for him. Damn it. “If my vagina hisses, we have bigger issues.”
Dak laughed. “Good point. Want to go to dinner? I’m starving.”
“How is that possible? You ate an enormous breakfast and lunch on the plane.”
“I’m a growing boy.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I need to work tonight,” I said. “I want to look like a team player.”
“Right. How about dinner tomorrow night, then?”
The suitcase Dak had carried up for me was resting on the floor between us, but he lifted it up again and tossed it on the sofa to take a step closer to me. Out of pure self-preservation, I took a step back. He stopped moving.
“Where are you going?” he asked, looking totally confused.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. But I can’t go to dinner with you tomorrow.” My back was almost against the wall, literally.
“Why not?” He frowned at me. “You have plans?”
“No, but I don’t think we should go to dinner where we might be seen. I think we should keep things professional in public.”
Dak gave me a nod. “Got it. Sure, if that’s what you want, Kitty.” He moved toward the door. “If I don’t see you this week, then, have a great Thanksgiving.”
Just like that. I had dismissed him and now he was leaving and how stupid was that on my part? That was clearly the message I had given him—to back off. But I wanted teasing texts and to see him at the offices tomorrow. I had assumed he would be there for the Monday meeting. I almost reached out and told him I had changed my mind and would love to go to dinner, spend the night with him like he’d suggested, and maybe never leave.
But I clamped my mouth shut tightly and swallowed all my desire.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m going to a Friendsgiving with my friends.” As if the very title didn’t make that obvious. “I’m supposed to bring the sweet potato casserole. My mom and her boyfriend are leaving on a cruise tomorrow. The Bahamas. Seven days. They plan to snorkel, which is something I’ve never done and I’m not sure I want to.” Now I was babbling.
The corner of his mouth rose higher with each additional word I spoke. “Sounds fun.”
Dear God, I was totally rattled and he knew it. How could I behave normally in front of everyone at the office? I wasn’t a good actress.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at work. Thanks for a fun weekend,” I said. Which was a ridiculous thing to say, but it was true.
Dak smiled. “My pleasure.”
He shifted toward me and I leaned in. He was going to kiss me, and I wanted to hold onto it forever as the final moment and memory of this weekend.
Dak kissed the top of my head. Not my lips. Not my cheek. Just the top of my head.
Then he left with a wave. “See ya, Kitty.”
That was deflating.
I had one brief, fleeting, insane moment where I contemplated opening the door and running after him and telling Dak I was falling in love with him. But if I did that, I wouldn’t have to worry about getting fired. I would quit out of sheer mortification and the inability to ever face him or anyone in the organization ever again. So I didn’t.
Instead I went to the couch, hauled Eli and Peyton over to me, and glared at my suitcase, the visual reminder of my weekend. I shoved it off the couch where Dak had set it. It tumbled to the floor with a thump. Turning on the TV for a distraction, I found a mindless reality show to demonstrate to me that other people’s lives were a much bigger mess than mine.
I’d gotten to experience sex, for the first time, with a guy who had made sure everything was amazing. What the hell was there to complain about that? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’d lost my virginity in a luxury suite, with champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries, to a man who made me feel beautiful and sexy.
No matter what the consequences, I was not going to regret that.
An hour later, I opened my email and found I had a summons from Jeff Dimarco for first thing Monday morning.
Yikes.
I turned to Eli. “No regrets, right, buddy?”
He meowed back at me. It wasn’t a convincing meow.
Chapter Eleven
Dak
When you run a play and it gains you no yards, you don’t run it again. You scrap it and call a different play.
I asked Eloise to spend the night with me and got a no. I asked her to dinner, twice, and got two nos in rapid-fire succession. It was obvious I wasn’t going to get what I wanted from a slow and steady ground game. I needed a long pass.
As I left her apartment, jogging down the stairs, I scrolled through my contacts and hit a number.
“Talk to me, bitch,” my buddy Train said by way of greeting.
Back in college at LSU, there had been five of us playing offense who had clicked from day one and were still close to this day. Train, whose actual name was Oleksander Volkova, was a tight end who had been my go-to guy for deep passes. Because he’d been born in Ukraine, he’d been nicknamed the Ukraine Train for blasting through defenders, and eventually we’d just started calling him Train.
Train wasn’t a guy who had a different supermodel in his bed every night. He was a gruff, rough, serial monogamist who poorly chose his partners. So after his last debacle of a relationship, he was lying low and being single for a while. But he knew more about commitment than our other three buddies, who were a couple of manwhores, and a country boy who spent more time with animals than women.
Train also played in New Orleans now and was the point man for our upcoming weekend. I got in my SUV and started the ignition.
“Hey, listen, I’m bringing a woman with me for the weekend.” Eloise might have said no to me, but she couldn’t say no to Jeff Dimarco.
Was that shady on my part? Maybe. I preferred to think of it as practical.
“What? It’s a guys’ weekend, bro. Fuck that.”
“She’s not just any woman. I want a shot with her and she’s holding me at arm’s length. I need you guys to sell me. She thinks I’m full of shit.”
Train gave a crack of laughter in my ear. “Smart girl.”
“I’m serious. I need you to help me figure out some romantic shit to do in New Orleans.”
“You can start by not calling it romantic shit.”
I rolled my eyes and put my phone down, letting the car system pick it up on a hands-free connection. “Come on, man. Help me out.”
“Well, what is she into? Partying, strip clubs? Museums and history? Ghosts and vampires?”
That was a good question. I thought about everything Eloise had ever told me about herself. “She likes football. Cats. Video games. Quirky clothes. Crafting.”
“Take her to the Mardi Gras museum. They have displays of floats.”
That wasn’t a bad idea. “Good call. I think she would like that.” She was definitely a creative type.
“Do a nighttime swamp tour. She’ll grab on to you when she sees a gator.”
“Also not a bad idea. You’re pretty good at this. But then again, I guess you have to be, given how ugly your mug is.”
“Fuck off,” he said mildly. “What’s the deal? You got actual feelings for this girl?”
“Yeah.”
“Interesting. Never thought I’d see that day. Who is she?”
“She works in the social media department, cleaning up my messes.”
Train snorted. “Well, no wonder she’s suspicious of you.”
“Dimarco sent her with me to Tennessee to keep me on my best behavior.” I found myself grinning as I drove. “Let’s just say that didn’t work out exactly as Jeff planned.”
“I take it you hooked up?”
“Yep.” That was the most lukewarm description of what we had shared. It had been fucking amazing. A connection. Physical and otherwise.
“And she doesn’t want to take it any further? Wow, you must have left her unsatisfied.”
I wasn’t going to rise to my friend’s obvious baiting. “She was plenty satisfied. She’s just worried about her job and that I’m playing around. She doesn’t want to wind up unemployed and me ghosting her. Which I would never do, but she doesn’t believe me.” It was true. I wouldn’t do that. I would never ask her to take risks with her career if I wasn’t serious about wanting to date.
“But she agreed to go to New Orleans with you?”
“No. She’s doing that in a professional capacity.” Or she would be anyway, after I talked to Jeff about it.
“Dude. This is going to blow up in your fucking face. Just so you know that.”
“Nah.” I didn’t get where I was by worrying about consequences. “After a weekend with me in New Orleans, I’ll have this locked and loaded. It will be romantic.”
“New Orleans is known for a lot of things, but I don’t think romantic is in the top five of that list. You’re confusing it for Paris.”
“Whatever.” I was still on a high from the weekend and the turn my life had taken. Me and Kitty. It was going to be a thing. She was the one.
“What did Mama North think of her?” Train asked curiously.
Train’s own mother was a blunt, often inappropriate, Ukrainian woman who liked to exaggerate about hardships in her younger life and liked telling embarrassing stories about him as a child. He had always joked he’d trade mothers in a heartbeat, but I wasn’t taking that deal.
“She actually liked Eloise a lot. Warned her off of me. Told her I wasn’t ready to settle down.”
