Playing Hard: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (22 page)

But with Ava… I don’t want this to be the only time we do this. She doesn’t feel interchangeable with any other girl. Her body seems molded to fit my hands — or vice versa.

And the way she moans when I take her nipple between my teeth, gently pulling….

Christ Almighty.

I know it already: I’m a dead man.

Her fingers fumble at the front of my dress shirt, and I help her by yanking my jacket off my shoulders, then simply tearing the shirt off my chest. There’s no way I’m getting my deposit back, extra cleaning or not, but right now I just don’t give a fuck.

My cock is hard again, pressing against her belly, and I lift her up against me, my hands on the back of her thighs, before I carry her across the room and dump her down on the bed with a crash.

“Jesus, Riley,” she whispers, looking up at me. “Darcey might be home. Try to be quiet.”

“I don’t give a fuck,” I growl, and I don’t.

I lie on top of her, my dick grinding into her thigh. She arches against me, hands fluttering over my shoulders. But when I pull back, I can still see hesitancy in her eyes.

And I told her I wasn’t going to fuck her tonight.

Not until she’s ready for it.

Instead, I slowly slide my hand down her side, stroking her soft skin, before sliding my fingers between her legs.

She gasps as my thumb circles her clit, writhing on the bed. Her eyes are closed, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth.

She’s unbelievably wet — not that that’s a surprise. But it means that when I slide my fingers up inside her, they glide in easily, her body opening without hesitation.

Ava whimpers as I stroke her, my fingers seeking out that little textured place inside her, while my thumb moves slowly over her clit.

“Oh fuck,
Riley…
” she gasps, as her fingernails dig into my back.

I want to kiss her, but I also want to watch her face as I stroke inside her: the way sweat breaks out over her forehead, dampening the dark curls, the way her eyebrows knit when I move my finger just right. I want to learn what she likes — what makes her mouth drop open in a breathy moan, what makes her fingers clutch at me and her toes curl against the bedspread.

And fuck
me
if it isn’t the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.

Her face is flushed, but this time it’s from pleasure, not embarrassment. She’s arching against me, pushing herself against my hand while I fuck her with my fingers. She’s lost herself entirely.

Her pussy clenches tight around my fingers, and I groan. She’s so wet and swollen and tight that I can only imagine what it’d feel like around my dick instead.

I can tell she’s close to coming from the way her hips shudder erratically, from the clench of her body around my fingers.

But even as she draws closer to orgasm, I feel her hand suddenly drop between my legs, her hand circling my cock.

She opens her eyes as she begins to pump her fist over me, looking into my eyes.

I groan, moving my own fingers deeper inside her, my palm pressing against her clit.

Her fingers twist gently around me, sliding easily up and down, her thumb circling the head at the top, smearing pre-come before she slides right back down to my balls again.

Holy shit
. For a virgin, Ava gives a great hand job.

In fact, for
anyone
, she gives a great hand job.

Maybe Ava just has good instincts for it. Whatever the case, I find myself speeding toward my own orgasm, dark heat gathering at the base of my spine once again, my hips pumping my cock in her hand.

Ava cries out as I curl my fingers inside her, pressing against her. I give her no relief, but continue working my fingers in and out, relentless. I need to see her come. Almost as much as I need to come myself.

I drop my head to her throat, licking at the sweat that gathers in the dip between her collarbones, sucking on her skin. She cries out, her pussy clenching around me. She’s close, she’s
so
close. She arches up off the bed when I take her nipple between the thumb and forefinger of my free hand, screaming her orgasm at the ceiling. For the moment, she seems to have forgotten about her edict that we have to stay silent.

Her rhythm on my cock falters as she rides it out, clenching and then relaxing around my fingers, her mouth dropped open and her eyes squeezed shut.

As she coasts down from the peak of her pleasure, though, I feel her fingers tighten, giving me one firm pull — and that’s all it takes. The combination of the look on her face and the squeeze of her hand has me seeing stars as I come again, spurting over her thighs. I already came not twenty minutes ago, so it’s hardly the same torrent as before, but it’s enough to make me swear out loud, cock twitching as I empty myself against her.

When it’s over, I lower myself to the bed next to her, sweaty and out of breath, and just let myself lie there, breathing in her scent. Of course, now, her smell is combined with mine — she’s covered in my come, from her face to her thighs. As I withdraw my fingers from her body, I raise them to my nose. I smell like her, too. I love the scent of her pussy on my hand, and I inhale deeply, before licking my fingers.

“Are you… sniffing me?” Ava asks, her voice quiet. I look down to find her big blue eyes open, a slightly quizzical expression on her face.

“Why not? You smell fucking amazing,” I tell her, before dipping my fingers into my mouth. “And you taste even better.”

She just gives me another slightly weird look, before maneuvering herself a little out from under me. I’m way too blissed out from coming to do anything more than watch her perfect peach of an ass as she walks away from me, still wearing her high heels, and then I hear the tap running in her ensuite a second before she reappears with a wet towel.

“Here you go,” she says, plopping it down on my stomach. “Just in case you want to clean yourself. I can… I can like, call you a cab or something, if you like.”

Anger — and a little cold fear — slices through my warm post-orgasm haze.

“Are you kicking me out?” I say, aware even as I say it what a hypocritical ass I’m being. The number of girls I’ve hustled out of my room the minute after I’ve come has been… okay, let’s just say, it’s more than a few.

In any case, I’ve never had to have this conversation before. I have no idea how they go.

“No, I mean — I’m not.” Ava hesitates, before sitting down on the bed. She picks up the towel and runs it over her thighs, wiping away my come. As if she’s washing me off her body. I know she has to do it for basic hygiene reasons — no one likes waking up covered in dry come — but it still annoys me.

“I just… I know your reputation.” She keeps her eyes down. “I don’t want you to think I’m going to… make demands on you. Or treat this as anything more than it was.”

I just stare at her.

I’m aware of my reputation — in fact, I’ve worked pretty hard to build it. I’ve never promised any girl anything other than a wild night in bed. Anything else, and I’m not their guy. Most girls are happy with that arrangement. They all want a piece of me, and they know I’m probably the best fuck they’ll ever have. If they’re cool chicks like Kara, I’ll hang out with them in between hook-ups, but there’s no expectations, on either side.

I have no idea what to say. I mean, I’ve hooked up plenty of times, but this is the first time I’ve ever actually wanted to stay over at a girl’s place.

Ava is still sitting next to me, eyes averted, like she’s waiting for me to get up and leave.

“I’m not getting in a cab wearing a fucking come-stained tuxedo like I’m Bruce Wayne or something,” I blurt out finally. “I’ll just crash here. Okay?”

Before she turns her head away, I catch a tiny curl of Ava’s lip.

She’s fucking
smiling
.

Whatever.

Grumpily, I take the cloth out of her hands and give myself a quick wipe. I’ve had to scrub dry jizz out of my pubes once before in my life, and once was enough.

I toss the towel across the room so it spatters onto the tiled floor of the ensuite. Ava’s face twitches, and for a second she looks like she’s about to get up and move it, but I’m too quick for her. I wrap my arms around her and pull her down on the bed next to me.

I don’t think about what I’m doing. I just know I want to feel her there beside me.

She settles next to me easily, and I close my eyes, ready for sleep.

“Bruce Wayne?”

My eyes flutter open.

“What?”

“You said you didn’t want to look like Bruce Wayne. I just thought it was kind of a nerdy reference. I pegged you more for a James Bond type, if we’re talking about come-stained tuxedos.”

“Are we going to have an argument about which jizzy tuxedo guy I look more like?” I ask. “Because —”

“No, I’m just teasing you,” Ava says, and I feel the breath of her laugh against my chest.

Fuck me.

Does she never stop? I just mutter something into her hair. I can’t be expected to make conversation when I’ve just come twice in the space of an hour.

“Good night,” she says, and I feel the tiny movement of her lips against my chest.

Closing my eyes, I drift into sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

RILEY

This is not my bed.

That’s the first thought that comes into my head when I open my eyes in the morning.

The second is the shocked realization that I’m not alone.

It takes me a few disoriented moments to remember exactly what went down yesterday, and why I’m not at home, sleeping in my own bed.

Ava is a warm bundle against my side. She’s turned over during the night so her back is facing me. Her hair cascades down over the pillow like a dark river, and I can see from the gentle rise and fall of her side that she’s still asleep.

I swallow.

I’ve never slept in a girl’s bed for the whole night before — and I’ve never let a girl stay over in mine, except in a strictly non-sexual capacity. Kara’s crashed a couple of times and it’d seemed dumb to make her sleep on the floor, but we haven’t fooled around the times she’s stayed overnight. That just seems a little bit too close to the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing, which neither of us is interested in.

Ava doesn’t stir as I slowly slide out of the side of the bed, making sure to cover her bare shoulder with the comforter. Either she’s a deep sleeper anyway, or she’s still worn out from last night. I grin a little. Can’t help but be a little proud of myself.

My smugness becomes irritation, however, as I turn and remember that the only clothes I have are the ones I came here with — in other words, the now crumpled tux and dress shirt. I pull on my boxers and retrieve the dress shirt. I’m at least mostly decent now, and certainly decent enough to go downstairs and find some breakfast, because I’m fucking
starving.

The apartment seems pretty quiet, so I guess Ava’s roommate — Darla? Darcey? Yeah, definitely Darcey — isn’t home. The kitchen is freakishly neat when I get there. There’s no dishes in the sink, no leftovers going moldy on the bench. I mean, I live with two other guys, and I know that if we let things get bad enough, Omar will lose his shit and just hire a cleaner, so it’s not like we have a lot of motivation to clean. But Ava’s kitchen looks like something out of an advertisement. There’s a fancy coffee maker on the bench, but I have no idea how to use one of those things, so I just start boiling the kettle and looking around for some instant.

I open and close about a dozen cupboards, getting increasingly irritated the longer it takes me to find the coffee. Where the hell is it? Not with the tea bags — and who the hell has loose tea in the house? Is it in case the Queen of England visits? — not with the cereal, not with the toaster. I check in the fridge. Not there either.

I’m getting a little frustrated — I really need my cup of joe in the mornings. Honestly though, is it likely that someone who comes from a family as rich as Ava’s would have ever even
seen
instant coffee? She probably gets it delivered, freshly ground every morning by servants.

Okay.

Maybe Omar’s right, and I
do
have a chip on my shoulder.

Especially since my one ambition in life ever since anyone first told me I had a mean throwing arm and a strong set of legs was to turn those skills into enough money to backstroke through.

And pussy.

Can’t forget about the pussy.

As I open and close yet another cupboard — how many fucking cupboards
are
there in this kitchen anyway? — I realize that the only pussy I’m thinking about right now is Ava’s.

That’s never happened before. Usually I hook up with a girl, and then it’s on to the next. If I can’t get the one I want for whatever reason, then there’s always another. But this time….

Ava is all I’ve thought about for the last three weeks. That’s three weeks of not getting laid, which for me is practically unheard of. If this keeps up I may as well go join the priesthood, because it has
never
been this long before.

But the only girl I’ve been able to think about is Ava.

I close the cupboard maybe a
little
louder than I intended to, then stare moodily at the kettle as it finishes boiling.

I still can’t find the fucking coffee.

“Hey, Ava, do you mind being a little more loud? It’s not like I’m trying to sleep or anyth— oh!”

I turn at the sound of the female voice behind me, only to find Darcey standing in the doorway, eyes wide, her fingers groping behind her for what I realize, to my horror, is the knife block.

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s me — Riley,” I say quickly. “Don’t stab me — I swear I’m allowed to be here. I came back with Ava.”

The fog of rage clears from Darcey’s eyes as she recognizes me, and she stops trying to yank a knife out of the block, which I’m definitely grateful for.

Darcey blinks, shaking her head. “Okay, sorry,” she says. “I didn’t realize it was you.”

Her eyes sweep up and down my body, narrowing a little. I’m not modest — what the fuck do
I
have to be modest about? — but even I realize I’m not exactly decent to be standing in the middle of a near-stranger’s kitchen.

“So… did you say you came back here with Ava?
Last night?
”

I can see where Darcey’s mind’s going. And to be fair, she’s not exactly wrong.

“Uh, yeah,” I say. “But it’s not what you think.”

Darcey’s grin grows positively
evil.

“Why, what am I thinking?”

I swallow. Man, I haven’t eaten breakfast yet
or
had any fucking coffee. I’m not prepared for this shit.

“You’re thinking I popped Ava’s cherry last night,” I say, deciding to get straight to it. “Well, I didn’t.”

“So why the hell are you standing half-dressed in the middle of our damn kitchen, then? You weren’t sleeping on the couch last night when I came in. Where
did
you sleep?”

I start getting a little uncomfortable. It’s not like I haven’t bragged about sex or girls before with anyone who’ll listen, but this time I just don’t feel like talking about it. It seems private, you know? Maybe it’s just because I know Ava wouldn’t want me blabbing her private business around, even if Darcey is her friend, and chicks supposedly tell their friends everything.

“I was just looking for some coffee,” I mutter, looking away.

For a moment, I think Darcey is going to keep interrogating me, but evidently she decides to have mercy. Sighing, she shoos me out of the way, before opening a small plastic box with drawers in it, taking out a little coffee pod and shoving it inside the fancy machine I noticed earlier. After a moment, hot coffee pours out of the spout below and into a glass.

“Here,” Darcey says, handing it to me. “It’s hot.”

I don’t care if I burn my tongue, but I blow on it anyway for the sake of having something else to do before I have to start explaining myself again.

Darcey is regarding me suspiciously, her red fingernails tapping on the black marble bench.

I take a sip of coffee.

“So,” she says at last. “You say you didn’t punch Ava’s v-card. But you clearly did
something
, otherwise you wouldn’t be skulking around here.” She sweeps her eyes up and down over me again. “I’m surprised you stayed the night.”

Ouch.

But not entirely unfair.

Okay, not unfair at all.

“It was late,” I say defensively.

Darcey shakes her head. “No, it was late when
I
got home. And you must’ve been already in then, because Ava’s door was shut, and she always leaves it open when she’s not in. It’s how I know whether I can have loud sex or not.”

Okay, I
really
like Darcey. How’d someone as uptight as Ava end up with a roommate like this?

To tell the truth, I have no idea what time Ava and I got here last night. We skipped dinner, so… hell, yeah, I guess Darcey’s right. It couldn’t have been after nine.

Ah, hell.

“Look, I don’t need this,” I say irritably. “If you want the info, go talk to Ava.”

Darcey raises an eyebrow. “Oh, I fully intend to. But first, let me get one thing straight.” She draws herself up, crossing her arms over her chest. She doesn’t even clear my shoulder, but hell if this girl isn’t intimidating. “I’ve been round the block almost as many times as you have. And let me tell you, Riley Knox — if you hurt her, you’ll have
me
to answer to.”

Well, this is awkward.

We — that’s me, Ava, Darcey, and Darcey’s date/one-night stand, who I think said his name was Brett — are sitting around the dining room table, a feast of McDonald’s spread out in front of us. Darcey booted Brett out to go get some as soon as she’d finished raking me over the coals, saying she had a hangover and needed something to soak it up. She and Brett are munching away happily, and hell, I’ve never been one to turn down a bacon and egg McMuffin. Ava’s just kind of picking at her hash browns, though. I can tell she’s embarrassed. She keeps darting her eyes up at me and then looking away.

She’s probably wondering what I said to Darcey. She came down into the kitchen just after Brett left to go get the food, and she must know we were up and probably talking to each other before she came downstairs.

I want to take her back up to her room and talk to her — I don’t know about what, but I just know I want to get some things straight.

It would help, though, if I could get things straight in my
own
head.

Like why is it that even though I have done pretty much everything with Ava except fuck her, I still can’t get her out of my head.

The only thing I want to do right now — or at least as soon as I’ve finished my third McMuffin — is go back upstairs with her right now, do again just what we did last night. Hell, I don’t even have to get my dick wet. Just touching her would be enough. As it is, it’s taking a lot of self-control not to lunge across the table at her. Or just reach across and stroke her thigh where it’s visible beneath the long t-shirt she’s wearing.

Eventually, the strain gets too much, and I do it. I just stroke my fingers down over her leg, barely brushing the soft skin of her thigh.

Ava jumps about a mile out of her chair, like she’s been given an electric shock, and turns her head to glare at me.

I can tell her heart’s not in it through, and I just grin at her through a mouthful of greasy fake egg.

Ava tries to look disgusted, but I can see from the way her lips part and her breathing speeds up that my touch is making her hot, even if she’s trying hard not to show it.

I leave my hand where it is, sliding gently up and down her leg, prickling her skin into goosebumps.

“So, it seems like everyone had a pretty good night last night,” Darcey says casually as she pops a fry into her mouth. “What’d you guys get up to? How was the charity dinner?”

I glance across at Ava, only to find her staring down at her barely-touched food. And yeah, I guess there’s not a lot we can say to that — seeing as we skipped out on the dinner so I could go eat her out in a closet.

“It was delicious,” I say. “Best meal I’ve had in a while.”

I see Ava’s brow furrow a little as she tries to figure out why I’m lying, before she realizes what I’m
really
saying and virtually turns puce.

“Finger lickin’ good,” I continue on. I like making her squirm. It’s kind of fun.

Darcey raises her sculpted eyebrow again, clearly knowing that
something
is going on, but obviously not stooping to outright asking.

“What about you?” Ava breaks in quickly. “Where did you go?”

Darcey waves a hand, before dipping the fry she’s holding into her sundae. “Party at Tori’s,” she says. “But it sucked, so I skipped out at around two.”

Brett looks up at her, obviously waiting to be introduced, but she doesn’t. I feel kind of bad for the guy. He’s pretty obviously smitten.

There’s another long, awkward silence.

Ava picks at her food, and I finish my McMuffin.

“You going to eat that?”

She glances up at me, as if surprised. “Probably not.”

“Cool.” I reach over, scooping one of her her hash brown on my fork. “No point in it going to waste.”

In response, Ava looks at me coolly, before very deliberately pushing herself away from the table, standing up, and striding off across the room. She goes up the stairs without breaking pace.

Everyone in the room just looks after her.

“What the fuck did I do?” I ask. “She said she wasn’t going to eat it.”

Darcey rolls her eyes. “Jesus, Riley. Are you even going to follow her?”

I chew on the hash brown. “Does she want me to? She just left.”

Darcey just stares at me. I swallow.