Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (27 page)

“Take off those pants, then,” I said. Instead of being submissive, I would have to take charge…it wasn’t my favorite thing, but I didn’t mind it. Although what I really wished for was a man who could take charge…a man who would love me…who would show me that I needed him…a man who could tell me what to do.

My life was so confusing. It was all getting so muddled. It was so hard making all my own decisions.
And making everyone else’s decisions, too.
I literally was making a thousand teeny tiny decision for other people every day…that was my job, to make the wedding decision that were too stressful or minor for others to make.

And I was sick of it.

I wanted someone to make the decisions for me. I wanted to feel safe and secure. I wanted someone to hold me and tell me exactly what I needed to do for everything to be OK.

Instead I was making the calls.
At the weddings.
And in my sex life.

“What do you want me to do next?” said the man in a servile tone. Why couldn’t he take charge? Why couldn’t men these days be men? Why did they have to act so subservient to us?

I just didn’t get it.

“Kiss me,” I said.

He came over. He had strong arms, but he held me delicately.
Too delicately.

“Act strong,” I said. “You’re strong. Hold me strong.”

Instead of showing me his force in a gentle way, he just squeezed me tighter.
Too tight.
But whatever…I guess at least he was trying.

He kissed me on the mouth. It was a nice kiss. It was sexy enough. Nothing mind blowing…that’s what I wanted I guessed…something mind blowing. Was it even possible to find that? At that point in my life, I was convinced that this kind of encounter was all I deserved. I didn’t deserve mind-blowing sex…I didn’t deserve a real man…I didn’t deserve what I wanted.

“Take off my clothes,” I said, pulling my mouth away from his.

He did so, but he did it too delicately.

Whatever, there wasn’t any point in trying to get what I wanted. This was what was available.

Why would such a hot guy act so servile? Why did he need me to tell him exactly what he needed me to do?

I pushed him towards the bed. He fell backwards.

I got onto the bed, pushing myself on top of him.

I kissed his neck. He kissed mine.

I ran my hands across his bulky muscular chest, through his chest hair…that’s one thing I did like about this guy. I couldn’t stand guys who had no chest hair…maybe I was old fashioned in that way. I understood that it wasn’t in style anymore.

My underwear was still on. I reached down and slipped it off me.

I positioned my powerful legs so that I was straddling him. I lowered myself carefully onto him.

I received him inside me. His manhood was big and hard. It felt good inside of me.

I rode him, quickly. I wanted to climax. I wanted to finish. My hair cascaded down around him.

He moaned, bucking his hips under me.

I groaned, as I continued to ride him. He put his hands on my hips, then my breasts, cupping them. My nipples were so hard it seemed like they would pierce his skin.

It felt good. His manhood inside me…it felt comforting, in a way. But I wanted him to be riding me…I wanted a man who would show me what he wanted…who could take from me what he needed. I wanted a man whose needs were the same as mine.

We moaned together as we climaxed.

I fell off of him, exhausted, turning away.

He snuggled up next to me.

“Not now,” I said.

“I just wanted to cuddle,” he said.

“I have a stomach ache,” I said, lying. I wasn’t in the mood to cuddle.

“Can I get you anything?” he said.

“A ginger ale,” I said.

I had worked at this hotel before, for another wedding. I knew the only way to get ginger ale was to go down to the front desk area and buy it from the vending machine. It would give me a few minutes alone to myself
…which
was what I needed.

Colton pumped his hips. He was on top of the beautiful woman in his hotel bed. She was moaning loudly.

He kept pumping, powerfully and quickly, until they both climaxed.

He rolled off of her.

It had been fun. But part of him wasn’t into it. Part of him was tired of this…weary was the word for it.

He was weary of his whole life.

His existence was nothing but competitions, and hotel rooms, fans girls, and photo ops, TV interviews.

It had been fun at the beginning.

Now it was too much…too much of the same thing...the connections were
fake
, fleeting. He had quickly learned that being in the rodeo business wasn’t what he’d thought it was…it was just as much about image as it was anything else. It was just as much about appearances as skill. It was more about knowing the right people and having the right connections than being in top physical shape.

The phone rang. It was Colton’s cell phone.

“Yeah,” he said, picking it up.

“Colton, where the hell are you? You’ve got an interview in twenty minutes. You were supposed to be here half an hour ago for makeup.” It was Colton’s’ manager, Tom. Colton didn’t know how many times he’d gotten calls like this: his manager telling him he was late, or had missed some important press event.

“Who’s that on the phone, honey?” said the woman next to him. He looked more carefully at her. He was a little less hung over now than before. She couldn’t have been more than 21. She looked like she was 20 years old, maybe a freshman or sophomore in college. She was beautiful. Her breasts were curved just right, and her naked body was smooth, all the angles and curves just perfect.

“Nobody,” said Colton, to her. “Listen, Tom. Don’t worry. I’m on top of it. I’m just stuck in traffic. I’ll be there in ten minutes tops.”

“Listen, Colton,” said Tom, his voice sounding stern through the phone. “Don’t play games with me. You think I didn’t hear that woman in the background? I just hope you’re sober when you show up.”

“I’m too sober,” said Colton. “Sober as hell. Don’t worry, I’m just hung over.”

“Good,” said Tom. “Now get your ass over here.” Tom hung up the phone.

“Love you too, honey,” said Colton into the dead air…it was a little joke he had with himself.

“That wasn’t your wife, was it?” said the girl, an anxious looking growing across her face.

“Yeah, it was,” said Colton. It wasn’t true, of course. But he knew there were times when lies worked better than the truth. Would it be better to tell her that she couldn’t do anything for him? That what he needed wasn’t sex from a beautiful young woman, but the mature love a woman his own age, of his own maturity level?

But things were hard for Colton, in a way. People thought that because he was a sports star, a world famous rodeo champion, that he had everything he needed: but the truth of it was that the kind of women that Colton needed weren’t the kind of women who were necessarily attracted to him. Sure, there were older women who wanted him. But they just wanted to sleep with him. No one looked at a rodeo champion, a bad boy cowboy type, as a stable long-term partner. They just wanted him for his body, for the adventure, and for the story.

The young woman started crying. “I didn’t know you had a wife,” she said.

“Sorry about that,” said Colton.

He helped her gather her clothes, and showed her the door. He had been so drunk the night before that he didn’t even remember how she had gotten into his room. He felt bad about letting her down like that, letting her think she had helped him cheat…but he knew well from experience that there was no other way to get rid of fan girls…they would just cling to him…and they didn’t have the emotional depth or interesting personalities that he wanted.

He looked at his clock. He had only a few minutes before he missed the entire thing…but he couldn’t even remember what kind of event it was that he was supposed to be showing up at. Hopefully the name and directions were in his email on his phone…otherwise he wouldn’t even know where to
drive to.

In the bathroom, he looked at himself in the mirror.

His body was bulky and muscular from riding the bulls. His muscles were sinewy. He inspected his face…
wow,
he was really bashed up pretty badly. That’s right…
.he
remembered it now…he had ridden yesterday. And he had fall off…of course he’d stayed on for a record time…but
he’d almost been trampled by the bull
when he’d finally fallen off. He had an intense black eye. The flesh around his eye was completely swollen.

There was a larger hoof-shaped bruise on his upper arm. It was almost obscured by a huge and intricate tattoo that ran down his arm. It wasn’t a full sleeve, but it was close.

Maybe that’s why he’d
drank
so much…to ease the pain.

In a way, he knew it was true…it was to ease the pain, but not the physical pain.

The pain that was more intense was the emotional pain…that longing for a true companion…someone who understood him…someone who didn’t just want to be with him because he was almost ‘famous,’ because he looked good in tight jeans, because he could stay on a bull longer than everyone else, because his lean face looked good on the TV screen.

In reality, he wasn’t even famous. Not outside the rodeo circuit, anyway.

I woke up in the strange hotel room. For a moment I didn’t remember what had happened. Then I saw the guy next to me...I remembered all right.

It had been sex. That’s about all I could say about it. Nothing spectacular. Nothing
mind
blowing. Not that I’d been expecting anything more.

I quickly slipped my dress on. I checked my face and hair in the mirror…I did the best I could to arrange everything so it didn’t look like I hadn’t showered, that I had spent the night in a stranger’s hotel room.

But it was pretty obvious. After all, I was wearing the dress from the wedding the night before.

But I couldn’t say I was surprised at my situation. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d woken up in the exact same position…
.in
the exact same hotel actually. Even in the same exact hotel room. I booked a lot of my weddings at this same hotel.

But it’s not like I had slept with an excessive number of guys. Not really.

I certainly didn’t go home with one at every wedding.

But a lot of the times I just couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t that I was looking for sexual gratification. I had a vibrator at home for that…and trust
me,
it was a lot more efficient. It knew how to get the job done a lot better than a lot of the men I went home with.

I wasn’t sleeping with everyone. But I will say that I knew this hotel’s entire staff by name. I was on especially good terms with the morning staff. They were so used to seeing me there they didn’t think anything of it.
Although I did wonder what they said about me…whether I was the object of hotel gossip.
No doubt I was. There probably wasn’t much else for them to talk about.

Outside on the large patio, I surveyed the remains of last night’s wedding. Sure enough, the chairs were still out there.

I set about folding them up and stacking them in the corner.

Then I went to my car, a big SUV I used for weddings. I took out a dolly I had, a little car with wheels, and loaded the chairs onto it. Twenty minutes later, my car was all packed up, and I driving back to my apartment.

I checked the clock. Shit…I only had about twenty minutes before I had to be in the office.

I made a quick U-Turn to the sound of everyone else honking at me wildly.

I had to get the office quick. I had an important meeting with my business partner, Sara. There had been some discrepancies with our financial books recently.

I had been annoyed with Sara for some time. She hadn’t been doing much of the work.

As usually, it seemed, I was left doing more than my fair share of work.

And to make up for, it what had happened?

“Sorry I’m late,” I said, entering the office, throwing my pocket book down on the big conference room table. “So what do you say, Sara, how should we begin?” I was busy taking files out of my briefcase, and hadn’t bothered to look up yet. After all, I already knew what Sara looked like. I saw her practically everyday at the office.

“I’m afraid Sara wasn’t able to make it today,” said someone.
A man’s voice.

“Who the hell are you?” I said, completely shocked. I was so
surprised,
I dropped half of my papers to the floor. I bent down to pick them up. Sara and I were the only ones who had access to the office. What was this man doing in here? He was wearing a suit. He looked like a lawyer or businessman, with wireframe glasses and a lean body and a closely shaven face.

“Sorry to startle you,” he said, rising to his feet, and holding out his hand.

I shook it, completely confused.

“What in the world are you doing here?” I said, looking around wildly. “How did you get in?”

“Like I said, I’m sorry if I scared you. Sara lent me her key. This is normally what we do in cases like this, to try to keep things as discrete as possible, try to keep them on the down low, if you know what I mean.”

“No,” I said, running my hands through my hair, hoping I didn’t look like I had just come from a stranger’s hotel from. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Well that’s what I’m here to try to explain,” the man said. “I’m John Haversmith, attorney at law.”

“I’m Katy Copen,” I said.

“Pleased to meet you,” said John Haversmith. “I’m here to represent Sara Meier in what we believe will develop into a case. I wanted to meet with you before this thing sees trial.”