RUNNING GAME (A SECOND CHANCE SPORTS ROMANCE) (68 page)

T
he very next
afternoon Gwendolyn had called me to tell me that she’d found me a match among all of her hundreds of female clients. Needless to say, I was impressed to have been matched up so quickly, but when your firm has a reputation like hers, I would have expected nothing less than exceptional.

My date was, apparently, a woman named Patricia—her last name hardly mattered, since the success of my time with her would result in a rather permanent change of it. She looked pretty enough, especially from the pictures Gwen showed me from her Facebook, some of which were very much to my liking—risqué and just barely within the bounds of propriety. Despite how eager I was to take a stab at this marriage business, the more I sat there, the less I actually wanted to go through with any of this. It wasn’t like me to succumb to nerves but something about this made me feel on edge.

I’d been there for almost half an hour before I began to even wonder if this woman would show up, the entire time Gwendolyn’s eyes hardly left me. She hovered like a hawk, making sure I had something to occupy myself with. I watched as she waited, it seemed often more nervously than even I was, for Patricia to walk through the door while Gwen’s assistant tried to get her to calm down.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” I said, trying to convince myself just as much as I was trying to convince her. “I’m a charming man. She’ll never be able to resist my charm.”

Honestly, it wasn’t bedding her that I was concerned about—I knew better than anyone I could get a woman naked and wet in the time it took most people to say “hello”—but that didn’t seem to be the reason why I was so… off.

“Yes, I know very well how charming you can be, Tristan,” she said, “but the question is whether that makes you husband material or not.”

“I thought we were looking for women that were wife material, not the other way around,” I said.

“It’s whether they actually do you the favor of even considering you for marriage that should be your concern,” Gwen said, frowning at me, her arms crossed over her chest. “You’re not exactly what most women are looking for in a husband.”

Something was off about her, and I definitely got the feeling that she wasn’t normally this neurotic when it came to matching up her clients. Just before I could ask her what she meant by that, the door to the office opened and the unmistakable bombshell that was Patricia stepped inside, her heels clicking softly on the hardwood floors.

She was certainly a beautiful woman who had no fear of flaunting the parts of her that she was proudest of—namely, her chest. Her blonde hair stretched down all the way passed her backside where it hung in a wavy sheet.

“Hello!” she called as she entered, looking me right in the eyes as she took a seat across from me in the waiting area. She crossed her legs, as she smiled at me, laying her purse on the seat beside her own. “This must be my arm candy for the evening.”

The way Patricia looked at me, you might assume that I was some kind of candy. In fact, the entire time we sat there I was quite certain she was going to take a bite out of me. She was certainly young enough, though I could tell that if she was left in the dating game long enough, Patricia would have become a ravenous cougar with all the shameless lust that came along with it.

“Tristan, this is Patricia Atmore. Ms. Atmore is the daughter of a software magnate, and she shares your love of the classics.”

“A pleasure,” I said, smiling at her stiffly, even I wouldn’t have bought its genuineness. It was forced, and I had little interest in hiding it. Maybe it was nerves, some irrational fear or misgiving about my whole elaborate plot. Either way, something felt off the moment that woman sat down, and I wasn’t entirely sure it was her.

“I’ve heard about you,” she said, biting on her lip ever so slightly. Already I could tell there were less than savory thoughts brewing behind those eyes of hers. Patricia was definitely the usual type of woman I would have been with, though part of me wasn’t sure if that was why I was so shaky on this date.

“Yes, I’ve heard that my reputation proceeds me,” I said, trying my best to sound charming.

“And it’s definitely quite a reputation,” Ms. Atmore giggled, her eyes dropping below my waist. I instinctively crossed my legs, frowning ever so slightly as I cast a glance over at Gwendolyn for some kind of help. Was this what it was like to go on a date with myself?

“Your car should be waiting out front,” Gwen said in a less than graceful save. Her voice was nearly breaking from the tension. “Your reservations are already made and everything is ready for you at the restaurant.”

I almost felt like my stepsister was rushing us out the door, desperate to see me out of her office and perhaps even out of her life. I wasn’t sure why, but that thought brought a lump to my throat. Why did she want to see me go so badly?

We stood and before I could react, Patricia had slipped her arm under mine as Tina and my sister escorted us to the elevator. I tried to get a look at Gwen’s face, perhaps see if I could divine some reason for her odd behavior, but no matter how much I tried I couldn’t get her to look me in the eye. I wasn’t sure why, but her behavior had me on edge.

We were both escorted down to the lobby, Tina and Gwen both seeing us off from the front doors as the limo driver stood at the ready, the door already open for Patricia and I to step inside. I should have appreciated all of the things that Gwen was doing, how facilitating she was being to my plan for revenge against my father, but now that it was all underway I was almost a little annoyed with her effort. Why was she trying so hard on this? I couldn’t imagine she put this much effort into her other clients, or that she cared this much about me even receiving my inheritance. So what was it that was making her go the extra mile, all while pretending she didn’t even give a damn enough to look me in the eye.

“Your sister told me that you were in the military,” Patricia said as the limo merged into traffic, quickly on our way to the restaurant that Gwen had picked out for our dinner reservations. “That must have been terribly exciting.”

“Not as much as you’d imagine,” I said, shrugging half-heartedly. “They don’t permit the aristocracy to engage in much excitement when they’re serving in the Royal Army. You’re usually there to look nice and stay out of harm’s way. They liked to handle men like me with kid gloves.”

“It couldn’t have been all bad,” she said, scooting herself a little closer to me on the seat. “Must have had your pick of the local girls, did you? Cute boy like you?”

“No,” I said, frowning as I gave myself a bit of room from Ms. Atmore. “The Afghani women don’t take kindly to soldiers defiling their daughters and wives.”

My date frowned, obviously displeased that I’d rebuffed her flirtations. Normally I’d have played along, teased and flirted for the entire car ride and on in through dinner, but something felt
wrong
about all of this. It was almost like the setting was right, but the person that was on it with me was entirely wrong. I didn’t want Patricia. I wanted someone else.

The driver pulled us up just in front of the restaurant’s main doors, opening the door for the two of us as we made our way inside. The car ride had gone on with an uncomfortable amount of silence, one that perhaps would be fixed once the two of us were happily filling ourselves with food.

While Patricia and I were both from money, it seemed that neither of us were particularly fond of the stuck-up attitude of London’s upper class, something that Gwen must have known when she picked the place that we’d be sharing dinner. The dress code was rather lax, sort of an “upscale casual” feel with a modern twist in the decor that I actually rather enjoyed, especially over those faux-French-style places that you’d find people of our “class” inhabiting.

The two of us were seated at a secluded table toward the back of the restaurant, all the better for a romantic evening. At least that must have been what my sister had thought. There was wine already chilling for us as we sat down and a centerpiece of roses that I’d not seen on any of the other tables. Gwen was pulling out all the stops for this, and that only seemed to make me feel worse about it.

“Seems like someone wanted this to be a special night,” Patricia purred as she took her seat, eyeing the wine chilling beside the table. “I’m normally not the biggest fan of sit-down places like this, but I’ve got to give it to your sister—this place is really nice. Not like all those other old fashioned and boring places my dad kept dragging me to when I was younger.”

The two of us ordered fairly quickly sending the waiter off about his business, though I’d have personally have preferred him to stay for the rest of the meal. I didn't want to truly be alone with Patricia, not when I knew that she’d try to turn what could have been a moderately pleasant experience into something I wasn’t intending on our first date.

Even the thought crossing my mind sounded wrong. Normally I’d have been the last person to take things slow on the first date, but for some reason I had almost zero interest in Ms. Atmore, especially not sexually. I knew who I wanted, I knew exactly which woman I had been craving for days… and it was the only woman I couldn’t have.

I went through the dinner on a strange sort of autopilot, my responses short and rather vague at times, something that Patricia seemed to notice only slightly. Perhaps she knew that I was playing hard to get, because the more detached I was the harder she pushed to turn things more and more… adult.

Patricia, despite my feelings at the time, seemed to be a lovely woman, and were I feeling like my old self I would have skipped dinner and had her bent over a public bench before the clocks had chimed for six-o’-clock. But I didn’t feel like my old self… I felt like someone different… someone I’d never met before.

I knew that I should be more interested. Patricia was honestly everything that I should have been looking for in a partner—she was smart, charming, witty, and as a bonus she seemed to have almost as dirty a mind as I did, every other word out of her mouth a veiled flirtation that evoked the thought of stealing away to somewhere private where I could have my way with her. Before the Army I might have taken a woman like her in a heartbeat, using her for my own satisfaction before we parted ways to find our next temporary lover.

Small talk had never been my strong suit growing up, and it certainly wasn’t a favorite pastime now, either. Our conversations were stilted and awkward, especially with my own disease seeming to make matters worse. When the time came to leave, I happily paid for the check and the two of us made our way out to the limo that had been waiting for us yet again. We had the car for the whole night.

Normally when I had the pleasure of a personal driver and an eager woman at my disposal, my first thought would turn to the abundance of trouble we could get up to in the back seat. It had been so long since I’d had the two in combination that I almost didn’t even consider it at first.

Maybe I’m just out of practice
, I thought as I sat back into the back seat.
This could be what I need to turn my thoughts back around
.

Apparently Patricia was having the very same idea, her finger pressed down on the control for the privacy screen that separated us from the driver. I looked at her, watching those full lips turn up into a wolfish grin that I’d seen so many times.

Once we were hidden from our drivers’ prying eyes, Ms. Atmore undid her seatbelt and got down onto her knees in front of me, her eyes cast up through those long lashes as her hands began to rove over my thighs, her nails raking over my slacks.

“You haven’t been quite the man they told me you were,” she said, her hand sliding along my inner thigh and up to the bulge of my cock. “You’re so distant… almost like I haven’t been forward enough to keep you entertained.”

Her fingers tugged at my zipper, biting on her lip as she waited to see if I would resist. As much as I wanted to tell her no, I also knew that I had to try and make this date work. If we had a little more adult fun then perhaps I’d be a little less stressed about what my stepsister was doing at that moment.

Patricia slowly pulled my zipper all the way down until my fly fell open, revealing my silk boxer shorts underneath. Once again her hands greedily explored this newly revealed territory, eager to discover if the rumors that had undoubtedly surfaced about me had all been true.

“Good lord,” she gasped as I felt her slide my cock from the confines of my underwear, her hand wrapped around its lengthening shaft as she marveled at the cold steel piercing its head. “I didn’t think you actually had it.”

“There it is,” I said, trying to sound at least somewhat flirtatious as she ogled my dick. “In all its glory.”

“Oh, glorious is certainly a word for it, you naughty boy,” Patricia giggled, chewing nervously on her lip. “Never been with a man with his cock pierced like that… should be loads of fun.”

Her hand began to slowly work me from the tip all the way down to my base, her eyes locked on mine as she began to jack me off. I was surprised at how skilled she was, my cock hardening like a rock in her hand. But despite all of that I still didn’t feel right. Something was wrong.

Whenever I looked down at Patricia I wished that it was someone else—someone I had wanted ever since that night together in that pantry. When I looked into this woman’s eyes I kept trying to picture my Gwendolyn there between my legs, her eyes locked ravenously onto my throbbing member in preparation to slide it all the way back into her throat. But try as I might, I couldn’t ignore the fact that it wasn’t her. It wasn’t my Gwennie.

“I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hand over hers to halt her expert ministrations. “I don’t think that I can do this, Patricia.”

For a long while she stared at me, her mouth agape in what could either have been shock or preparation to suck me off. Either way she did not at all seem particularly thrilled that I’d just refused her attention.

“Are you really telling me no?” she asked, her eyebrows rising in a mixture of incredulity and annoyance. “How in the world does a bloke get his cock played with and then just up and tell a girl no right when she’d about to suck him dry?”