Текст книги "Bad Boy's Baby"

Автор книги: Sosie Frost

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

This was wrong. I knew it. Every instinct in my body told me so. God only knew how many others he had teased this same way, and how many more he almost had if his car hadn’t crashed and his intended foursome scattered.

But Christ, I wanted this. So badly.

For as often as I fought him and chastised him and dealt with his every terrible scandal, Jack was just what I needed after avoiding everything romance, everything sexual, everything pleasurable since losing a man I thought would help me begin the life I planned.

Jack would give me nothing, but he could show me what I had missed. Just once, I wanted that freedom, that irresponsibility, that danger of giving a part of me to a man I knew wouldn’t cherish it.

And I didn’t care because I knew what I’d get out of it. I’d have a night to help me forget a man who already forgot me. I’d receive hours of pleasure and a moment to experience the excitement of spending the night with a man who had a reputation so depraved it’d make a girl like me horrified.

Jack’s hands were huge. So was his body. His shoulders. His chest. His legs.

The part of him dragging against my leg as he teased my nipples with a knowing tongue.

“Just this once, Jack,” I said. “Just once.”

“Once?” He grinned, tugging on my nipple until it popped from his mouth. “Kiss, you’re gonna want it more than once tonight.”

“T—tonight?”

He moved lower, kissing a trail over my tummy, my belly button, and finally to the little bow on the front of my panties. He gripped that in his teeth, threatening so much more to the delicate slit beneath.

“Kiss, if you think I won’t fuck you all night, you haven’t been paying attention to all those scandals you cover up.”

“And now I get to become one.”

“You’re no scandal.” The panties slipped over my hips. His breath caught as the hint of my slit peeked between my legs. “I’ll never apologize for what I’m about to do to you.”

I would. I’d be sorry for it later. For now, I wouldn’t regret a second while his breath tickled hot against my legs. He kissed my thighs and spread me open. I trembled. Jack stared at a part of me I once vowed he would never, ever see, touch, taste, or take.

He broke that vow in one swipe of his tongue against my slit, tickling my clit, tasting my slickness, and then completely imbedding within my tight pussy.

“Oh, my God, Jack!”

I gripped his shoulders, fearing I’d rip the shirt from his chest. His lips sealed around me, nibbling and feasting, and I collapsed against the leather as his prodded touch drew more desperation from my voice.

Shivers upon shivers.

I arched, offering more to him. Jack grinned, his lips wet with my own desire.

“Kiss, you’re sweeter than chocolate.”

I should’ve been embarrassed. Mortified. Fighting my need to wrestle my panties from his hands and cover the parts of me that should’ve been hidden from a playboy, trouble-maker like him.

Instead I offered myself, gasping his name and begging to feel more of his wide tongue spreading my slit and tempting the silken wetness within.

And Jack knew exactly how to play me. He wasn’t just a skilled athlete; he was a sinful lover. He knew how to make me groan, when to tease my gasp, and what little trick of his tongue would whisper an undignified plea for more of his attention. No woman was safe in his arms. He left no innocence unconquered.

His pants unzipped. A thrill tickled through me. He didn’t leave the pulsing slit between my legs, still feasting, licking, driving my body to the absolute peak.

But Jack needed his own relief. I drove him insane with a lick of my pussy, so much that he had to pump himself as he gobbled me whole. My eyes fluttered closed, but I tried to stare, to see just what made Jack Carson so goddamned arrogant.

He wasn’t cocky.

He was all cock.

A pulsing, thickening, insanely large cock.

Even with his quarterback hands, he couldn’t hold the entire length in his fist. The head of that delicious looking weapon glistened with pre-cum, hardened with desire, and throbbed with the tease of my pussy so near his body.

Jack growled against my petals. The hum of his words and the heat of his breath melded into an absolute warning against the threat of what he wanted to do.

Why didn’t I heed that warning?

I should’ve pushed him away, gathered my things, and scampered off to safety like the good little girl that I was.

I meant to refuse the man who prayed on innocence, stole inhibitions, and corrupted the virtuous into crazed vixens.

Instead I came.

My body arched in a ripple of cascading agony, a perfect pain that exploded, sizzled, and rent through my every muscle. It punished me for surrendering and prepared me for what else I’d give up in exchange for the moment my breath whispered his name and my fingers gripped his hardened shoulders.

Jack didn’t let me breathe. He forced himself up, cast off his shirt, and kicked his pants low enough to free the entirety of his monster cock and heavy balls from the material. He tugged a packet from his pocket and ripped through the foil with a growl. His cock twitched in need.

I didn’t have the strength to consider how quickly, how dangerously he moved. He sheathed his cock in protection and moved over me for a kiss, letting me taste how much I had desired his lips on my other delicate places. Jack shifted my legs and coiled me around him.

He was so big. Too big. Huge.

I stared at him with wide-eyes and found my voice in a soft admission.

“I…haven’t done this in a while.”

Jack laughed. “Can’t say the same, but I’ve never left a girl unsatisfied.”

“Yeah, but with a cock like that…do you leave any alive?”

“Alive, satisfied, and spent from orgasm after orgasm.”

“Promise?”

Jack grinned. “Trust me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“And that’s why you’re still a good girl.”

He spread my legs and fell over me, his weight supported by a thick arm bulging with muscle and tensed with a need to take and rut and seize me.

I leaned up to kiss him, sucking along his lip, baiting him with my tongue. Jack growled. The head of his cock pressed against my slit.

And that was the moment my phone rang.

“Let it go—” Jack pulled away as I twisted, lunging for my phone. “Kiss, what are you doing? Get that perfect ass back on the couch.”

“It’s Jolene.” I recognized the ringtone, more obtrusive than ever. I wiggled away from Jack only to plop off the couch on my apparently perfect butt. “It could be about that journalist.”

“Fuck that sleezeball.”

“I’m afraid he’s going to fuck you.”

“At least someone will.”

I answered the call, realizing all too late I was completely naked, slick with desire, and sweating in anticipation. My curves were on display for Jack, and his cock bobbed obscenely hard, waiting for me to return.

Jolene talked fast, but I kept up, eying Jack as he was sure to get the news too. I ended the call.

He shrugged. “What?”

I didn’t know how to cover my nudity, but folded arms offered me a bit of protection.

“Were you supposed to go out with Bryon tonight?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“He was just arrested for sexual assault.”

I pulled my dress from the floor and did my best to shimmy into it. Jack still had my panties. He could keep them. A memento of the mistake that might have been.

“What do you mean arrested?”

“You need new friends, Jack,” I said. “I am so glad you weren’t out with him.”

“Wait…they’re wrong. He wouldn’t do that.”

I arched my eyebrow. Jack broke my gaze first. Bryon was exactly the type of man to do something so heinous.

“He’s in custody now. Jolene got a call from his agent. They want to hire us before it gets bad. I gotta go in to work.” I held my hand out. “Panties, please.”

Jack reluctantly handed me the crimson silk. “What about…?”

“Sorry.” I covered my face. “Sorry, this got out of control. We never should have—”

“Yes, we should have.”

“No, Jack. We can’t. We just…” I wished I had a glass of water, something to ease whatever flames burned through me. “You are so lucky you weren’t with him tonight. Half of the damn offense is at the police station with him. If you had been there…”

“I wasn’t.”

“And that’s why we need to be careful,” I said. “This. What we’re doing? This fake relationship is for our protection. We can’t jeopardize it. No matter what happens. We can’t let ourselves…”

“I get it.” Jack didn’t look like he wanted to understand. “Fine. Need a ride?”

“No, I’ll call a taxi. I want you to stay here, okay? That journalist was bad enough. I don’t want anyone to even start a rumor you were with Bryon.”

He tossed his shirt over his shoulders. It couldn’t button. His cock still raged hard in his pants. I tried not to look at what might have been.

“Thank you for dinner,” I said. “I…uh, I won’t bill you for it.”

Jack scowled, returning to his beer on the bar. “Bill me, Kiss. If this is our professional relationship now, I don’t want anything to ruin my reputation. At least my credit is impeccable.”

“Jack—”

“This is how you want it?” He held his arms out. “This is how you get it. No fooling around. Nothing more than sheer respectability. I possess some self-restraint, but thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did. I’m not your type. I’m your one wild moment. The one man you could’ve looked back on while your future husband lays over you for thirty seconds to finally give you that baby you want so much.” He shrugged. “Fine. I’ll spare you the guilt of having sex and using me to feel good about yourself.”

“I’m sorry!”

“I’m not some mistake to be made,” he said. “If I get you, I want all of you. Not just your curiosity. Not because I’m your one bad thing you do. I want to fuck you, and I want you to like it because you wanted me.”

I couldn’t answer. Jack didn’t expect one.

Well I didn’t have a choice. If I was protecting myself and my career and Jack’s reputation, we had to be responsible.

Even if it meant denying something we both wanted.

Even if it meant denying each other the only thing we both needed.

Chapter Six – Jack

I kicked my ass from one side of the field to the other and worked my muscles raw, and still I couldn’t punish myself enough for being so fucking stupid.

I made a lot of bad calls in my life. Yelling at the most gorgeous woman in the world seconds after her legs wrapped around my head?

Rookie. Mistake.

What the fuck was happening to me? God damn that woman—that beautiful, sexy, infuriating woman. Leah was the only girl I’d ever wanted who hadn’t wanted me back.

No—she was the only one who ever refused me. Even after she liquefied on my couch. She didn’t just reject me. She denied herself.

Leah. Wanted. Me.

She couldn’t lie to me with my head between her legs. Her thighs had tightened over my ears, but I didn’t have to hear her moans to sense what she craved. I tasted it. Savored it. I was practically burned by the searing heat in that perfect pussy that trembled so sexy against my tongue.

It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough until I was balls deep in that woman.

If I hadn’t made such an idiot mistake, I might’ve had her.

Didn’t matter. She’d be mine as soon as I figured out how to make her talk to me again. Really talk to me. Not any of this bullshit photo-op dates. I’d win her over the only way I knew how. Some people had a golden voice, I had a golden tongue.

But first, I had something equally important to do. I remembered McGrin Regional Hospital’s layout. I wished I hadn’t. Or that I hadn’t remembered all the days and nights we spent running back and forth through the halls. The pediatric wing was the worst, artificially colored and bright but still clinging to the scent of antiseptic.

It was a shitty place to grow up. It was worse when most of the kids in the beds didn’t make it.

I didn’t stay long. Couldn’t. Too many memories and not nearly enough reason or justification for what had happened. I dropped the check, shook the doctor’s hand, and we were done.

I made it to the lobby before she found me.

Leah dressed for success. She covered up everything sexy, but she didn’t need a miniskirt to make me beg. She bit her lip. That meant she had bad news. But, hell, everything about her was bad news anymore.

Look, but don’t touch.

Defend, but don’t take.

Have, but only temporarily.

Women never used to affect me. I just needed a quick fuck, and I’d get her out of my system. No other woman would do. I needed her. Begging. Panting. Wanting.

“You’re a hard man to track down, Jack,” Leah said.

Everything about me was hard. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’d ask you the same question.” She adjusted the strap on her laptop bag so she didn’t have to look me in the eye. She hadn’t held my gaze since that night. “Jolene reps this hospital. Imagine our surprise when her contact calls to tell us Jack “Play-Maker” Carson is talking to the Chief of Pediatrics.”

“Think I was going to ruin something?” My voice edged hard. “Cause a problem? Throw down with a nurse in the middle of the floor?”

Leah flinched. God, I was edgy around her. She didn’t deserve my temper, not when she was still trying to preserve my reputation along with her job. That made her dedicated…and an idiot. She refused to take her pleasure even when it was thrust in front of her face.

Or between her legs.

She sighed. “Jack, I’m not starting a fight—”

“I was donating money.”

Leah’s eyes widened like I handed her the fifty grand. “You’re…donating? Like, charity?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded for her to follow me. Her petite legs scampered to stay at my side.

“Why are you donating to the pediatric ward?” she asked. “And why didn’t you say anything to me about it?”

Because I avoided this reaction. “What’s it matter?”

“Jack, this is a moment we could use.” She followed me outside but pulled me behind a concrete pillar before I bolted for the parking garage. Her voice hushed. “This is something amazing I could use as a photo-op. If I could write an article and push it to an outlet—”

“No. You’re not doing it.”

She didn’t understand. She wouldn’t, and I didn’t want to explain.

“Jack.”

“You’re not making this into some goddamned PR stunt.”

“This is good publicity. You need some of that. It’s not like our dates have been doing much.”

Yeah. Total waste of time, especially if I wasn’t getting laid. “Those last three dates were a blast.”

She shrugged. “I’m trying. I have social media retweeting and reposting things, and I’m leaking pictures. It’s only been two weeks.”

“It could be two fucking months, Kiss. Christ.” I didn’t mean to get pissed. Two weeks without a fuck was something I hadn’t dealt with before. “Unless I’m banging two girls in a bar bathroom, doing body shots off some co-ed with daddy issues, or getting sucked off in my car—no one cares what the fuck I do. They want to see the media’s version of Jack Carson. Your version. The trouble-maker.”

“I don’t think that’s really you.”

“Yes, you do, or you wouldn’t have stripped for me.”

“Jack—”

“We almost fucked, Leah.”

“Yeah, well, sorry my notch in your bedpost buffs right out.”

“Don’t apologize to me.” I licked my lip just to watch her squirm. “You missed out on the fucking of a lifetime. Hope you don’t lose too much sleep regretting it.”

“I take solace in the fact that I’m saving ten bucks on a box of condoms,” she said.

“Where I come from, the gentleman buys.” I winked. “I even get them ribbed for her pleasure.”

“Oh, remind me to list that act of charity in your next puff piece,” Leah said. “Compassionate Manwhore Says You Bring The Wine, I’ll Grab The lube.”

“Got news for you, Kiss…you didn’t need any lube.”

She shifted, uncomfortable and unable to deny just how wet and ready I made her. “Well…now that you respect me that much more as your publicist, maybe you’ll be more inclined to look favorably on our next organized outing.”

“Where?”

“The ballet.”

“Absolutely not.”

She sighed. “It’s a cultural event. A lot of local celebrities are going to the opening.”

“Then no one will notice I’m not there.”

“It’s important.”

I grunted. “It’s not. This isn’t working, Kiss! These dates don’t do a damn thing.”

She didn’t like the criticism. That was fine. I didn’t like blue balls.

“We did the baseball game,” Leah said. “People liked that. We were on the jumbotron between innings. Everyone saw the local football hero wearing a baseball jersey, supporting the other professional teams in the city while out with his girlfriend. That’s a good start. It’s building a narrative.”

“You didn’t even kiss me back when the monitor drew a heart around us.”

She shrugged. “I got nervous.”

“Bullshit, you organized it,” I said. “Goddamn it. I’m so hard up on you I’m trying to score on a fucking kiss cam.”

“It’s not a good idea, Jack.” She exhaled and avoided my gaze. “Especially now.”

I recognized that tone. Learned to hate it. “What happened?”

“There’s a story coming out tomorrow about Bryon and his arrest.”

It was a sore spot between us. She thought he was bad news. So did I, but he was still my best friend and threw one hell of a party.

“They let him go,” I said. “No evidence.”

“Yeah…but it’s a whole article about professional misbehavior and league liability.” She frowned. “You’re their lead example.”

“Mother fuckers.”

“I tried to contact the writer. He won’t return my calls. We need to do something about this before you’re labeled a sexual predator.”

“How do you know I’m not?”

“Maybe you are.”

“Then run away little girl. Before I finally catch you.”

She didn’t want to play. Too bad.

“We’ve gotta make a plan tonight, Jack. I’ll buy us a pizza if I can come over?”

“You sure you wanna risk it? Last time you were there, you ended up naked and coming all over my couch.”

Her voice edged, a little kitten striking out with claws. “Yeah, I’ll try to contain myself.”

“Left a nice little wet spot too.”

“Jack.”

“You have any idea how sexy you are when you’re riding my tongue and getting yourself off?”

“Sexier than you can handle.”

“Not my first rodeo, Kiss. I’ve held you. Kissed you. Tasted you. Only one thing left to do now. Take a guess what it is.”

She stalked away, and I loved to see her pissed off, especially if it was the only passion I could get from her. It felt nice to get under her lovely skin again.

“Seven tonight, Kiss,” I warned. “Better be prepared.”

***

My pool was a good place to relax after practice. I needed to get more reps in, and the water comforted my bruised body. It took work to get in my shape. I built my pool specifically to help me train once my body gave out after a day of practice and working out. That was when I had to push it the most.

Breathe.

My arms cut through the water.

Stroke.

Not even the chill of the pool could dull the pounding in my cock. My body wasn’t streamlined at the moment, and nothing I did would rid me of the fucking hard-on. Seeing Leah, pissing her off, inviting her to the couch where I almost fucked her into oblivion? It wouldn’t calm me down.

 I was that close.

Breathe.

What was wrong with me? I needed her. I wanted her.

Stroke.

I had more important worries than when I’d finally have her lips wrapped around my cock. The Rivets hadn’t called my agent for contract negotiations. I expected an extension before training camp started. A good fucking contract. Hundred million dollars or more.

Breathe.

They didn’t call. No one in the organization had a goddamned thing to say about it.

For the first time since I was drafted, I had the muzzle on and an empty bed. I was a good boy, but the Rivets were still as concerned about my behavior as the fucking league president. Christ only knew what Frank Bennett told them, and it wasn’t good.

Stroke.

If I didn’t get signed this year, it wouldn’t just be an insult—it’d be the end of my career. Only two years in and I was fucked beyond repair.

But If I didn’t get laid, none of it would matter. My cock would fucking explode before I could negotiate my signing bonus. Not sure a eunuch could make it in the league.

Breathe.

I hit the end of the pool and surfaced to study a pair of delicate and sleek cocoa legs slipping beneath the ripples. Leah dropped her laptop and purse on a lounge chair, and she wrapped her skirt a little higher on her thighs. She kicked her perfectly painted toes in the water.

“Hey.” Her voice was soft. She knew she got caught where she didn’t belong. “Hope you don’t mind me crashing your pool. It’s really hot out here this evening.”

 And now the water fucking boiled.

I shook my head, dragging a hand through my wet hair. Leah recognized my smirk.

“Anything for my little woman.”

“Jack.”

“Mrs. Carson.”

Leah exhaled. “I knew this was a bad idea. I should have just called.”

“Probably.”

“I thought we could be adults.”

I glanced at those toned, dark legs. I didn’t let her get away. I grabbed her toes under the water and tickled. She cracked a smile before she could scold me.

“Last time I had you here, we did a very adult thing,” I said.

Leah cleared her throat. She tried to stand. I didn’t let her up. Instead, I spread her legs and moved between them. She squealed, covering the crest between her legs with a frantic hand stuffed in her skirt. Didn’t matter to me. I remembered what was there, how it looked, tasted, felt against my lips.

 I had to feel it again.

“Jack, what are you doing?” Her breath teased me with the tiniest of gasps. Not fear. Not worry.

Lust.

“You know damn well what I’m doing.” I tugged her legs wider apart. “Do you have any fucking idea what you do to me?”

“Apparently I turn you into a beast. Let me go.”

I grinned and pulled her leg up. The water lapped low against my trunks. It covered my cock, but not by much. I kissed her toes, her heel, the sensitive arch.

“Jack, let me go.”

“Why?”

Her brow furrowed, but her words clipped as I sucked on her toe. “I don’t need to give you a reason.”

“I want one.”

“I said no.”

“You’re afraid you’ll like this.”

Leah swallowed. “We can’t do this, Jack.”

“I’m not doing anything,” I said. “Just kissing you a little.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“You don’t want to be kissed?” I teased further up her leg. I thanked whatever fertility god blessed the pool with cold water. It kept me from exploding with those curves so near my fingertips. “You know my reputation better than anyone. Am I known as a generous lover?”

My tongue flicked behind her knee. She shivered.

“I doubt you’ve ever thought of anyone but yourself,” she said.

“Ouch.” I nipped her inner-thigh as a punishment. “I’ll have you know, I’ve been thinking only of you these past few days.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?” Her words shuddered as I edged closer, resting her other leg on my shoulders. Her skirt bumped high enough for a peek of her panties.

Pink today.

Innocent.

Fucking sexy.

She stared at me, meeting my gaze as I kissed slower, lower, drifting towards a part of her that watered my mouth. I fisted my cock twice a day just in memory of her taste. Now there she was. Waiting. Trembling.

Wetter than me, and I was in the pool.

“You’ve only been thinking of how to get me into bed,” she said.

“Not just the bed. The floor. Against the wall. Over the arm of the couch.”

“Jack—”

“I want to watch you come.”

“W—what?”

I pushed her legs apart, breathing heavy against her warm flesh. She panicked against her own desire.

“I want to watch you come. Once wasn’t enough, Kiss. Twice won’t be enough. If I had it my way, I’d leave you naked and writhing on my bed from now until we both passed out from exhaustion. Then I’d wake you up just so I could taste that sweet cream of yours again. You get me?”

“I…I can’t.”

“You can’t come?” My grin wasn’t meant to reassure her. I gave her fair warning before she was about to get devoured. “Sure, you can, Kiss. You’ll come hard the instant I slide my tongue over that little clit. I’ll suck on it a bit, make you purr. Lap up all that honey inside you until you scream my name and I forgive you for rejecting me.”

“Jack—”

“I want to make you come. I want to hear you thank me with a moan. I want to taste your pleasure. And I want to own this little pussy’s every quivering pulse. You get it yet?” My fingers dug into her thighs. “And you’re gonna let me because you know damn well it’s all you’ve thought about too.”

Her legs fell open for me. Those pink panties were in my way. I’d have bitten through them if I wasn’t worried I’d accidentally nip what I planned to worship, sink into, grind against in a moment of pure ecstasy.

My cock hardened until it threatened to rupture. No time to drag the material away. I pushed it to the side with a quick flick of my fingers, exposing the delicate little crest.

Leah held her breath before I sunk between her legs.

She released it in a surprised gasp the instant my tongue whipped against her clit. I took every last fold and petal within my mouth and savored the part of her I wanted only to taste and touch and fuck until we collapsed.

She didn’t need teased, and I waited too long to eat her again. My lips curled over her clit, and I suckled just the way I did before, just to hear that throaty groan turn to utter panic at the rush of sensation and excitement and pleasure. Her bastard fiancé never made her feel like this. Even better, I knew her fingers couldn’t replicate this feeling when she thought of me alone in bed at night.

Leah’s head fell back. Her hips angled up. Now I knew why she was so desperate to stay out of my arms. She knew the instant I grabbed her would be the moment I never let her go. Not until she fucking melted into a puddle of spent orgasm and slid from my arms.

And even then, it just made her easier to fuck.

I liked my women exhausted. Panting. Agonized. But I never got a chance to destroy one in pleasure before. I never wanted to, never enjoyed it before Leah.

But I could watch this woman writhe all afternoon. I’d work her gasping breath and boiling core into a frenzy, and then I’d let her crumple while I wrapped her legs around her. I planned to fuck this woman delirious with her own desire.

A night of continuous pleasure.

A cock buried inside a clenching, dripping, begging pussy.

Watching as Leah came and came and came against me.

Fuck, why the hell did I work my entire life for a championship when the only goddamned thing I wanted was to give this woman the ultimate delight of my tongue flicking against her clit?

“Jack…” Her fingers ran through her hair, gripped the cement, reached for me. Nothing would ease that need in her. One orgasm or a hundred, it wouldn’t matter when the girl wanted to be fucked and fucked hard. “I’m…I’m…”

She didn’t have to say it. I felt it. The tensing of her body, the clenching of that perfect pussy over my tongue. She whispered my name, but it sounded louder in my head than when they announced me entering the stadium on game day.

Leah arched and bucked and exploded for me, on me, because of me, and nothing in my life looked more beautiful than that woman enjoying the gift I gave her.

She sunk to the cement, resting against the warmed concrete and letting her legs fall wide.

She was mine.

“Jack, God...”

Wasn’t the first time I was compared to a deity. Wouldn’t be the last either.

Enough of this bullshit. I had no contract extension. Articles were going to run labeling me some sort of sexual predator.

Fuck it.

Why not get one good thing tonight?

I hauled myself out of the pool, stopping only to gather Leah in my arms. I was soaking wet, and she murmured about her clothes, but they wouldn’t stay on her long enough to matter.

I busted through my living room, tracking water over the carpet. I’d rip it up and buy a new one, I didn’t care. Leah whispered a protest. Hell no. I wasn’t letting her cool off.

I stopped where we were, lifted her in my arms, and took another kiss—deep and hot and promising so much more than a simple orgasm delivered poolside.

Leah moaned, gripping me tight.

I was in.

I had her.

I steadied her over my couch. The TV blasted loud. The remote hid somewhere, fuck if I knew. I’d ignore it…

…But the sports channel I watched said my name.

Like a moth to the goddamned bug zapper, I was drawn to my own destruction.

“…No amount of talent is worth it. Jack Carson would be one-hundred million dollars’ worth of trouble.”

Sons of bitches. I knew the anchor—Ainsley Ruport, some silver-haired douchebag who never stepped onto a field but thought he could play quarterback better than me. I threatened a lot of reporters. Only one deserved the punch, and I was pissed I never got the chance to crush his nose in.

Leah’s tongue flicked over mine. I tried to focus on her, but the insults kept coming.

“…With the new morality and behavioral clauses in contracts, no team will risk a fine for a player who refuses to put the team first…”

My fingers tightened on Leah. A photo from the championship game appeared on the screen—the confetti dropping over the podium as quarterback Tim Morgan hoisted the trophy that should have been mine.

“Morgan’s got a solid head on his shoulders, and he should be expecting a significant bonus and extension to his contract.”

Bullshit. Tim Morgan had more whores in his closet than skeletons. No way that bastard was the pretty boy favorite now?

The picture changed. He held the trophy and his year old daughter on the podium. Christ only knew who he knocked up, but there he was. Brandishing the kid. Changing hearts and minds.

The press loved the baby more than the trophy.

“…This new father really turned his life around and made strides to mature and represent his team…”

What the hell did being a father have to do with being a good quarterback?

Fucking nothing.

But they coo’ed over the goddamned baby pictures as if the kid were the starting quarterback instead of Tim.

The idea crashed into my head, so sudden and fucking perfect I dropped Leah on the couch only to turn the volume up.

“Jack?” Leah straightened her skirt, confused.

I didn’t take my eyes from the TV, my grin growing by the second.

“I just solved our PR problem, Kiss.”

“You did?”

“I know exactly how to win over the league.”

She sat up straighter, glancing from me to the TV. “How?”

“I wanna make a baby.”