Happily Ever All-Star: A Secret Baby Romance (66 page)

He gripped my arms, striking me against the wall. I gasped as he hauled me up and coiled my legs around his waist. I should have taken the panty hose off, but he ripped them apart anyway with a harsh profanity.

A delicious shudder tore through me. God, he was strong. He held me steady, pinned, waiting for his desire.

Cole freed his monster cock and teased me with the thick, pulsing head over my slick folds. His words bound me in place. The dark and secret fantasies twisted in my core.

“I want to make you come…and I want to make you scream.”

His thickness pushed against me, pressing hard and slipping into my pussy. My eyes widened, but he didn’t let me make a sound. His kiss silenced me as he forced another inch within me.

“I want you bent over and rutted…and I want to worship you from my knees.”

Deeper. I stretched over his cock. My head fell back, delirious with the throbbing heat.

“I want to fuck you until you beg for mercy…and I want to pleasure you until you beg for
more
.”

He sunk into me, claiming the entirety of my body with a single, punishing thrust. I gasped as our bodies met. So big.
Too big
. I groaned through parted lips and ached in shock.

“But more than anything, beautiful?” Cole whispered his delicious threat. “I want to make you
mine
.”

I clung to him as his cock pierced me. Nothing compared to his touch, his taking, his
claiming
. He fucked me as hard and furious as he’d promised.

This wouldn’t be gentle, but I wasn’t looking for anything sensual. I needed him. I wanted him. Nothing would stop us from tangling in mistake and lust.

Cole slammed into me, and I was sure I would bruise by morning. Nothing in this world would make me regret it.

I tightened over him. His uncompromising thrust ground him harder against my folds. The rough denim of his jeans rubbed my sensitive slickness. Too rough. It should have hurt, but I loved the wild, uncompromising intensity.

I surrendered to his strength and welcomed his cock deep. The mounting, furious tension bound me to his arms. The pleasure silenced my moans, choking me in shivered agony.

I clutched him as he grunted and sweated. A dark desire filled us both, and I submitted in his kiss. He bottomed out in me, forcing me to take the entirety of his cock if I wanted to come.

And I did.

Hard.

The primal instinct surged through me, and I arched as the shock ripped through my core. This wasn’t a gentle, patient tingle of excitement. The crest pushed me to the edge, kicked me over, mowed me down, and crashed through me with wave after wave of crippling desire. I panted and wept and came again and again with him, on him, because of him.

He came inside me, filling me with his heat. I lost myself in his crazed kiss.

Something
perfect
existed in his touch. Rough and gentle. Fierce and consuming. Even his kiss was a contradiction. Just as passionate as any fairy tale declaration, but every bit the devouring bite of a monster.

It didn’t matter. As long as I kissed him, as long as I touched him, I existed in a moment of perfection.

After a minute, he lowered me to the floor, but my legs couldn’t support my weight. I leaned against the wall, amazed and ashamed and absolutely satisfied.

Cole tucked himself into his pants. He didn’t look at me. “That what you wanted?”

I nodded, breathless, but he didn’t stay. He said nothing else, only turned and stalked from the room, silent and…

Angry
?

“Wait.” I smoothed my dress over my legs. “I mean…thank you.”

His voice chilled. “Glad I could be of
service
.”

I stiffened. “That’s not—”

“If you want a nightcap before bed, you know where to look.”

I didn’t like his tone. “No, thanks. I think you
served
me enough.”

“Get your fill now. I have another away game this week. Won’t be around after Friday to fuck the shit out of you.”

What was wrong with him? “You know, Cole, you’re not very good with this afterglow part.”

“Never needed to be.” He shrugged. “You wanted to be fucked, you got it. Nothing else I can offer you.”

“Cole—”

“Night, Piper.”

The door slammed behind him.

What the hell just happened?

My orgasm had shattered me, and I was too shaky to pick up the pieces without getting cut.

The gentle Cole was gone, shoved back into the hole where his heart should have been.

What had happened to our moment? I
knew
something good had happened, some breakthrough into his mind and soul.

But I should have known better. Why was I trusting a man who deliberately hid the best parts of himself?

It was a mistake to sleep with him. Both times.

If Cole wanted to be a beast forever, fine.

I wasn’t going to save him from himself.

“
H
ow’s the MILF
, Cole?”

Tim Morgan was a dead man. His laugh cackled over the locker room.

How hard was it to shower off the sweat and dirt in silence? Some men didn’t know when to shut their mouths. Others waited for me to do it for them.

Tim buttoned up his suit and admired himself in the mirror. He paused only to wink at his offensive linemen. He spoke loud, for the benefit of the team. Real courteous.

“I hope she’s treating her new sugar-daddy good,” Tim said. “But hell. I’d buy all the diapers and Legos in the world if it meant I got to fuck that sweet little cunt.”

The locker room quieted. Surprised. The team didn’t know anything about me, let alone my taste in women. I intended to keep it that way.

The anger management bullshit never worked before, but I had to try something. Counting to ten. Focusing on my breaths. Whispering a relaxing word that could calm me down.

Piper. Rose. Piper. Rose.

It wasn’t working. Not while Tim cackled, imagining all the filthy things he’d do to a woman he
never
should have imagined.

I kept my voice low. “Shut your mouth. I hear you talking shit about Piper, I’m gonna put you through the damn wall. You get me?”

“It was a
compliment
.”

“She doesn’t need
your
approval.”

Tim knotted his tie. He made a habit of looking nice and respectable, in case the media remembered what a shithead he was. The asshole had the nerve to hang a picture of his daughter in his locker, right next to the panties he swiped from the cluster of women watching the practice.

“You know…” He shrugged. “I’m glad you got yourself a woman. Hope she loosens you up.”

I buckled my jeans and shoved my feet into my shoes before I stuffed a football down his throat.

“Is she hot?” Deion, our center, took one too many blows to the head and forgot his manners.

“Yeah.” Tim grinned. “Piper Madison. Paul Madison’s daughter.”

“Oh
shit
. That little piece of dark chocolate?” Deion hooted. “You hitting that, Cole? Didn’t take you for the romantic type.”

Tim laughed. “Cole’s not winning any bitch over with that charming personality. He’s paying her to stay around—she’s his agent.”

Deion chuckled. “Christ, my agent won’t even take my calls, let alone my dick.”

“You’re missing the best part!” Tim wiggled his eyebrows. “Piper’s already had a kid, but there’s no baby-daddy in the picture. Know what that means?”

“What?”

“She’s not just hot as fuck, she’s
easy
.”

I charged Tim before the team could stop me. I considered cracking his skull on the lockers, stuffing him through an electrical outlet in the wall, or breaking my knuckles on his nose.

But if I hit Tim, my career was over.

And right now the game was the only thing keeping my temper in check.

He whined, but I was stronger. I tossed his worthless ass into the showers, pitching him into a stall. Tim shouted, but the freezing water must have shriveled his balls. He didn’t come after me, just whined like the little bitch that he was.

“This is a three-thousand-dollar suit!”

“The next time you insult Piper Madison, I’ll hold you under until you drown.”

The silence wasn’t a good sign, but at least our quarterback was
living
. I shouldered my bag and strode out of the locker room, slamming my fist against the door to coax it open.

Sometimes the pain helped. Sometimes it calmed me.

Today pain made it worse.

Much worse.

How was I supposed to live with this kind of rage? A blinding, uncontrollable,
painful
anger squeezed my chest and tore through my veins. It
hurt
. It pissed me off. It exhausted me.

And it endangered everyone who dared get close to me.

I left the facility. That’d probably get me reamed out later, but at least I wouldn’t blackout rage in the safety of my own house.

I hoped.

I hid in my weight room for the afternoon. Most sane and rational people would have let me be, let me seethe around my machines and weights. Most
normal
women would have avoided me until I was too exhausted to care about anything but dragging my ass to bed.

Not Piper.

The woman didn’t have an iron will, she had brass fucking balls.

And she was
pissed
.

This wasn’t going to be good. Piper tapped the baby monitor in her hand. The kid was napping. Christ only knew what would happen now. The best and worst moments of my life occurred the instant Rose fell asleep.

“You’re the only man I know who gets
angry
after sex,” she said.

“And you’re the only woman who’d confront me about it.”

“After the first night we spent together…you took off without a word. Without even a goodbye before you left for the game.”

“Okay?”

“Then yesterday, out of
nowhere
, you fuck me, drop me, then
insult
me.”

“I’m not a compassionate kind of guy after my balls are drained.”

“Oh, but you’re
very
eloquent.”

“I never made any promises about sweet nothings in your ear, did I, beautiful?”

Mistake. Piper was a five-foot-tall firecracker, and I just lit the fuse.

“I wasn’t looking for flowers or candy, thank you very much,” she said.

“Just wanted to get off on the biggest cock you could find?”

“No.” Piper stared me down. “I wanted to get off on
your
cock. And I did.”

I didn’t want to think about what that meant. “Then unless you’re looking to make the third time the charm—”

“I’m not here to fuck you.”

“And I’m not in the mood for company.”

I settled onto the bench and prepared to lift. Piper slammed the baby monitor on a rack of weights next to me. Great. Now my ears strained to hear. Was it static or was the kid crying?

Just interference, but I couldn’t relax.

“You’re making my life exceedingly hard, Cole.”

“What did I do? I haven’t even seen you today.”

“You got in a fight in the locker room.”

I brushed the powder off my hands in preparation for the lift. “Come here to scold me? If you want to play mommy, go take care of your baby.”

“You are
such
a jackass.” Piper fumed. “Do you want me to leave? Just say it. Believe me, Cole, you’re not giving me much of a reason to stick around—in your house or as your agent.”

“Did I
ask
you to leave?”

“No, but you’re acting like a jerk. Like you don’t care about
anything
, even your own career. Do you have any idea the problems a fight with Tim Morgan can cause you?”

I wasn’t an idiot. “Tim ran his mouth.”

“He’s
the
face of the Monarchs. He’s the one the team will protect, not you.”

“Think I don’t know that?”

“Stop this pissing contest with him. Measure your dick some other way.”

And let that jackass dishonor her? Insinuate her baby was anything but a goddamned miracle of smiles and giggles?

I should have knocked him out cold.

I said nothing. Piper lost her patience.

“Don’t you get it? The Monarchs only need a reason to cut you. It doesn’t have to be at the end of the season. They could call me
right now
.”

“Don’t tell me you want a trade again.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to risk everything because Tim Morgan is an asshole.” Piper paced the room, ready to blow. “I had a sponsorship deal lined up for you—the cover of League 2017.”

Oh. Fuck. Since when did she score endorsement deals?

“Forget it,” she said. “It’s done. The fight was already mentioned on Twitter. Give it until seven o’clock when Ainsley Ruport picks up the story, and the game will drop you.”

“Then I lose a sponsorship. So what?”

“It’s a
million
-dollar deal!”

“Do I
look
like I need another million dollars?” I sat up, loving how Piper couldn’t resist a glance at my abs. “There’s probably rooms in this house you haven’t even seen yet, beautiful. Why don’t you go get lost?”

She seethed, but she wasn’t an idiot. She stared at me, beyond the muscles and sweat, headphones crackling with white noise, and my scowl meant to drive her away.

“You’d do anything to avoid attention, wouldn’t you?” she asked. “You don’t want the deal. You don’t want to stay at the practice facility with the team. You hate interacting with people, and you’ll ruin every good opportunity just so you can stay hidden.”

I didn’t answer.

“You know, I always thought it was strange…why you came home so early every day. Out the door at dawn, but back mid-afternoon.”

Christ. I didn’t have the patience or strength to deal with this.

She forced me to listen.

“The team practices in the mornings and has meetings in the early afternoon,” she said. “Then the players
usually
train in the weight room together. Not you though.”

“Not me,” I agreed.

“You come home as soon as you can leave.”

I gestured to my state-of-the-art, quiet,
private
weight room. “Why would I stick around when I have this?”

“It’s not the equipment, Cole.”

I gritted my teeth. “What do you want from me? I’m a loner. You know that.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“
Why
are you a loner?”

I didn’t answer.

“Cole,
look
at me.”

Piper’s voice tore from her, a blend of anger and frustration. She should have stormed out of the weight room, cursing me for hurting her. Instead she confronted me.

Why
? What did she want? An answer? A reason why I couldn’t bring myself to look at her?

Did she want me to admit it?

It was because she was so beautiful and gentle and smart.

And the longer I stayed in her presence, the more I hated myself.

“You live in this big, fancy house all alone,” she said. “Why?”

Were we really doing this? “I like it that way.”

“You like this much property? The taxes? The estate upkeep?”

“What’s a gardener or a maid matter to me?”

“This is your parents’ house?”

Good. A history lesson. “And my father’s father’s. And his father’s before him.”

“Where are your parents?”

“Dead.”

“You don’t mourn them.”

“Hard to mourn someone I don’t miss. My mother died when I was young, my father took his sweet time following.”

Piper nodded, like she figured me all out, like it was
that
easy. “You didn’t get along with your father?”

“What’s that got to do with the house?”

“You said before that he hit you.”

“Everyone gets beat by their father.”

Piper raised an eyebrow. “Not me.”

“Right…yours just fires you and leaves you homeless without any alternative.”

“I had an alternative.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Marry Rose’s father.”

The thought set fire to my blood, and I didn’t even know the man. “But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because Jasper isn’t a good father to my child.”

And so she talked with
me
? Fucked
me
?

My guts churned with ice.

That made sense. Piper wanted to use me for a quick fuck. Nothing more.

Hell, I had no idea what else I could offer her.

“At least you took your comfort in my bed,” I said.

“Yeah. I took a nice tumble in those sheets.” She stepped closer. “And I don’t regret it.”

“You will.”

“Do you want me to?”

No, but it was inevitable. A woman like her needed a prince charming, someone responsible and
safe
. Someone she could trust with her baby.

“I did what you asked of me,” I said. “You wanted to be fucked. I fucked you.”

“Yeah, you’re real magnanimous that way.”

“Aim to please.”

“And you did, even if you don’t believe me.”

“You’re not very subtle, beautiful. You came and nearly wrenched my cock off.”

“So what’s the problem?” she asked. “You’ve been trying to get in my pants since the moment we met. Now that you’ve been down and back twice, you won’t even look at me while I’m talking to you. What happened? Wasn’t I any good at it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Not experienced enough for you?”

I heaved a breath. It didn’t extinguish the burn in my chest. “You were perfect, beautiful.”

“Do you think I’m…easy now?” Her voice edged in a hidden pain, like she
actually
thought I find something wrong with her. “Am I damaged? You fucked me. Am I now repulsive to you?”

“Jesus Fuck, Piper. You think I’m
repulsed
by you?”

“What am I supposed to think? I don’t know if you like me. I don’t even know if we’re
friends
. I have no fucking idea if you actually
want
me here.”

“Fuck me, Piper. You don’t understand.”

“Then
help
me understand.”

She wanted the truth? The ugly, horrible, heart-breaking truth?

Fine
.

My voice lowered, harsh and unbreaking. “I asked you to move to the estate because when you and the baby are around, I feel like less of a monster.” I stared, willing my gaze to punish her for summoning
the beast
. “I’m not repulsed by you, beautiful. I’m repulsed by
me
.”

Piper stepped back, but she wasn’t getting away this easy, not now.

“Why?” Her voice quivered. “Why do you hate yourself so much?”

“What’s there to love? I
have
to hate myself. If I didn’t…if I let myself
be
that monster…”

The words didn’t come. Piper reached for me, and I batted her away. No touching. No speaking. No nothing. My heart shredded itself in my chest. Didn’t need it anyway.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like living in a constant state of
rage
?” I whispered.

Piper exhaled, trembling so near to me. Fear?

No.

She
listened
. Eagerly. Desperately.

“I battle it every damn day,” I said. “I work hard to contain that
hate
. I wake up angry. I fall asleep angry. I do my job angry. And usually I can control it.”