Linebacker's Second Chance (Bad Boy Ballers) (15 page)

“I want to figure a way out, Mack. But we have to wait until after this. The engagement is contractually obligated, but my lawyer did say that we could likely get out of the marriage
after
the season is over.”

“Jesus,” he grumbles, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I never should have agreed to this.”
 

I put my hand on his shoulder. “And I swear, Mack, I’ve done this a dozen times, but I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t have done it with
you.
Marrying off your ex probably isn’t a good idea, but I was bound and determined to make sure you keep that job. Your family’s farm… you keep it going, don’t you?”

He shrugs, and his face goes blank for a moment. “I guess I do. Let’s just say I’m not keeping as high a take-home salary as a lot of the other guys I know. It’d be damn nice to get a raise, I can say that for sure.” He pauses. “But Renata, at what cost? We already know Eddie and Kinley are taking us for a ride. If we get in any deeper, what else is gonna happen?”
 

I keep silent, because for once in my career, I don’t know the answer to a question like that—and the truth might be something more terrifying than I want to face.

“Let’s just get through tonight. Go on up there, get yourself dressed, and greet Kinley with a smile. Go on now.”

“Will you come up there for the party?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I better keep my ass out of this one. I’ve done enough damage.”
 

It’s on that note that Mack walks back up the hill to his home. I watch as Kinley’s car pulls up, as the caterers drive off. Balloons go up, tents full of food, a table filled with gifts that neither of them will ever use.
 

Could it have been us?
I wonder. After a while, I do my yoga routine for the day and climb into bed, pulling my sleep mask down over my eyes and shutting out the rest of the world. It’s only nine when I drift off, thinking of Mack. But there isn’t a point in guiding him through this, and there isn’t a point in putting either of us through the pain. Sleep seems best, and so I let it take me.
 

***

Much later, I wake up to a gentle tapping at my window. I’m reminded of the times Macklin threw rocks at my window to wake me up, back when we were in high school. So long ago. I turn over and try to ignore the tapping, but it becomes louder, more insistent. After a few moments, I realize that it’s someone knocking my door, and it’s not just my imagination. I slip off my sleep mask and walk to the door, the very door where I saw Mack a few hours before. And there he is again. When I open the screen door and he walks in, I half-expect to smell alcohol on his breath, the sickly scent of it coming out of his pores. But no. Instead, it’s just Mack.
 

He’s standing there with a distant look on his face, hands in his pockets. “She left with Gabriel Quarles, the wide receiver. She did her thing, you know. She was charming, made sure Eddie saw the two of us together. Made sure she spoke to every player in the room, as nice as you could be. Showed off her ring—the one she bought, you know.” He walks over to one of the couches in the living area and leans back against it. “It would be great if it worked, I’m sure. It would all be fine. Maybe it would have worked, too, if she were someone different. I think she went off with Gabe at some point, outside or—who knows where. She doesn’t care who knows she’s getting with him, as long as she shows up and recites the lines we give her. You worked with other women like this?”

“No,” I say honestly, going to stand across from him. “I haven’t. To tell the truth, usually my guys actually get into relationships with the women we select. That’s how good a job we do… But not in this case.” The weight of my own words weigh heavy on me. Maybe I’m not as good at my job as I thought… or maybe it’s just this man standing here in front of me. I remember the taste of him on my lips, and suddenly I’m aware that I’m only wearing a t-shirt and panties. Inappropriately, a jolt of arousal crashes through me, pooling between my legs. I gulp. We’re supposed to be talking business. That’s what he came here to do. It doesn’t help that he looks model-good in a button-down shirt, or that the piney cologne he’s wearing accentuates his natural musk.
 

Part of me wants to ignore the whole thing and hope it goes away, but that’s not how I deal with things professionally, and it’s not how I want to deal with this.
 

“Don’t you think my reputation would be just as good if I was with my high school sweetheart?”

He takes a step closer, and I gulp, backing my ass up into the kitchen counter. His hand reaches out and brushes my arm, leaving a trail of gooseflesh in its path. I can’t get the taste of him out of my head, and that
thing
starts to take me over, the thing that makes me want more.

“This isn’t the solution…” I gasp as his hand moves down to my breast, cupping it, fingers rolling the nipple so that a glittering light takes me over and expands into the far reaches of my body. He lifts my shirt and cups both of my breasts at once, bending to put his lips on one nipple and then the other.
 

For a second, he pauses. “This is the only thing I want right now, Renata. I want to finally dive into you. I want to come inside of you and watch your face when I do.” He raises his head, eyes meeting mine, hands still on my breasts. “I’ve been with a few women in the years we weren’t together, but I always wanted you. And a few days ago, I went by the doctor and got tested. I’m squeaky clean, and I’m yours if you want me.”
 

I shiver at the thought. Mack and I always talked about our first time together, what it would be like. His skin touching mine, nothing between us. I had been so nervous about being with him—so shy and so young. I had wanted to wait until we were engaged, and then he had just disappeared. But now, I’m a grown woman, and this is what I want.

Very faintly, I nod.
 

Mack takes that as his cue to pull my shirt off over my head, leaving just my panties. I move to take them off, but he stops me. “Leave them on,” he growls. “I want to feel them against my cock when I’m inside you.” He leans forward and gathers me into his arms, pulling his own shirt off as he lifts me up and carries me over to the soft sheepskin rug in front of the guest house fireplace. When I reach for his cock, I find it’s already hard. I fumble with his jeans, and he pulls them off, grabbing my hands and turning me so I’m on my hands and knees in front of the fireplace. I close my eyes, losing myself in his warmth, his scent. Hands grasp me squarely on the waist. Fingers trail up my body and find my breasts again, moving lower and lower until I feel a hand between my thighs, brushing gently over my sex and filling me with an undeniable longing.
 

There’s no getting away from this for either of us. Both of our lives have been building to this one inevitable moment. And here we are, finally lost in it.
 

Mack’s fingers pull my panties to the side, his thumb making its way down my slick folds and back over my clit in repeated circles. Each time, he brings me closer to orgasm and then backs off, leaving me anxious for his next touch,
hungry
for more. I haphazardly remind myself that I’m on birth control, that Mack is clean. I’m still sure I shouldn’t be doing this, but with each skilled touch, I fall farther into my need and farther away from all sense of reason.
 

When I feel his cock at my entrance, I’m already so wet that the head slips right in. I look over my shoulder to see Mack, hands wrapped around my waist, sighing as he pushes himself further inside me. His gaze doesn’t leave my face as he enters me, inch by inch, slowly filling me. I’ve been waiting for this moment for years, and I didn’t realize it until this very night. I moan slightly, warmth rising over my body, filling me and spreading out to every cell, every fiber of my being. Wired—that’s the feeling I have, even though he woke me from deep sleep. Pausing, he brings his hands to my breasts and teases my nipples, making me grow wetter, more ready for his formidable length and thickness.
 

Time slows down, and I let out a deep, frustrated moan. “Come on, baby. Make me come.”
 

He closes his eyes, sighing and pushing his full length inside. Looking back down to the floor, I can feel myself stretching to take him in fully—there’s discomfort, followed by pleasure so intense that I almost come right then. His cock is swollen, hard, hitting places inside that I never dreamed were so sensitive.
 

“So tight, so sweet,” he groans, picking up his rhythm. His hand reaches around to find my clit as he enters me again and again, stimulating the tiny bundle of nerves, sending chills up and down my spine, sparks flying through each nerve.
 

“You’re going to make me come, baby,” I cry out as he rides me, the base of his cock hitting against my soaked panties. The orgasm rises in me and then builds in intensity, never stopping, never slowing down as he comes inside of me, thrusting hard from behind and filling me to completion. I realize I’ve been gripping the rug, nails buried deep in the thick, soft wool.
 

After he thrusts one last time, he slumps against me, and we both fall to the floor. Macklin pulls me into his arms, holding me against his muscular body. It’s been so long since I’ve seen all of him—the thick, sculpted muscles, the washboard of his abdomen. He’s always been huge, but he’s maintained himself with utter perfection. Since he’s quit drinking, he seems even more svelte. I let my hands linger over the ridges of his abdomen, the tight roundness of his ass.
 

Is this what I’ve been missing all these years?
 

My body is still on fire from him, and now I realize that I’ll keep that feeling with me as long as I’m anywhere near him.

The emotions I’m feeling tangle inside me like an angry swarm of bees—guilt for taking this job and then letting my nostalgia affect my judgment, shame at not seeing Kinley’s scheming as we got farther into this mess, and happiness, finally being with the man I always wanted.
 

Mack washes all the worry and concern away when he rolls me to my back and kisses me again, deeply, drawing my bottom lip in.

The tingling sensation takes over my body again, and I submit to my desire. Mack’s insistent length is already pressing against my thigh, and there are so many ways we haven’t yet explored each other’s bodies. For now, I let our problems fade for a moment and take him in before I have send him home to his own place so no one catches on.
 

There are so many questions left unanswered… but what harm could we do right here, just the two of us? Even as I ask the question part of me is aware I'm lying to myself. What harm could we do? A lot of it. We could end Mack's career. We could end
my
career. I just can't say no to him. Being away in California was the only thing that allowed me to tell myself such a laughable thing. Now that I have to be around him again, it's all come back in a flood of memories, sensations, old longings I thought had been left tin the past a long time ago.

We’ll take care of our situation, and then no one will ever know. At least, that's what I tell myself. That's what I have to tell myself, because to do otherwise would be to admit that I just don't think I can stay away from Macklin Pride.

My head is pounding when I wake up, not in that hungover way I'm used to, but in a way that signifies I was having the best sex of my life last night, and I might have spent every last ounce of energy I'd been saving up for the pre-season, and hell, maybe the entire season while I'm at it. In fact, I'm quite likely dehydrated. I turn over and realize that this is the first time I've slept with a woman where I knew her full name, her history, her likes and dislikes, and the way she styles her hair in the morning to boot. If you'd asked me a month and a half ago, when Renata was in the back of my mind instead of in the front of it, I'd have told you that it didn't make any difference which type of way you had sex with someone.
 

But I know her.
 

Each piece of her. The good parts and the bad. The pushy, over-confident mask she shows everyone, and the inner sweetness, the part that she barely shows to anyone besides me and Wingate.
 

She showed that to me last night, that vulnerability. She'd kept it hiding the whole time she was here, going through the motions of getting me that fake fantasy girlfriend that all the men in the league are supposed to have. She'd gotten lost in her craft, and there was no room for that other side of her to escape. Until I touched her, until I felt her, until I made her scream my name.