Stroker: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (24 page)

We’re a good hour in. Another half-hour and the movie will be over, the silence to follow awkward, the ‘It’s getting late’ moment.

Talk to her. Talk about anything.

“You weren’t at the game this week.”

No shit.

Surprisingly, she answers, still watching the movie. “I like watching you guys play, honestly, but I can’t see Josh, not right now.”

“I get it, but you will come back, right? Watch me at the very least?”

Her eyes meet mine. “And see you steal another one of Josh’s goals? Yeah,
that
I would love.”

“You broke up on bad terms?”

“You could say that.”

She’s closing up. Clearly, she doesn’t want to talk about it and this is no way to get closer to her.

I pick up the remote, run my fingers over the rubbery buttons wishing they were on her clit instead. “How’s work?”

Good one, Jensen. Real panty-dropper.

She breathes out. “It’s work, you know. I stich people up, clean up ten types of bodily secretions, I write in a clipboard.”

Scar’s been at St James Memorial for a year now in the ER. I can’t stand fucking hospitals, but I respect what she does.

“Has to be better than the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, right?”

She brightens further. “That was actually kind of cool, kid puke aside.”

“You still love those movies?”

“I’m surprised you remember.”

“I do. I remember everything.” I tap my head. “Photographic memory.”

She pushes me playfully, the sudden contact between us welcome. “You wish.”

“But you do like Harry Potter. Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re right. Who doesn’t like Harry Potter?”

“Hermione is pretty hot.”

A look of feigned shock. “She was, like, ten.”

“Ah, but she’s not any more, is she?”

“You’re crazy.”

“And you’re still a kid. I bet you still use that Buzz Lightyear nightlight, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” she purrs.

“I think it’s adorable, personally.”

“You would. I imagine under all that muscle and testosterone there’s a big teddy bear waiting to get out.”

I look down at my crotch. “Big
is
right word.”

She shrugs. “Didn’t want to offend the little guy.”

Gosling enters the screen with his shirt off. Scarlet doesn’t even notice, turning towards me and crossing her legs under herself.

I wag my finger at her. “That was a low blow.”

“The best kind.”

Is she flirting? Holy fuck.
“Are you trying to get into my pants, Scarlet Matthews?”

The corner of her lip curls up, legs shifting below her. “Is that an open invitation?”

“I don’t give them out often.”

A moment passes. I can’t make out what she’s thinking. Normally the signs are giant, neon, but Scarlet’s a mystery. “I’m surprised you haven’t settled down, Jensen.”

I point to myself. “Me? Settle down?”

“The bad boy thing’s a show. We both know it.”

“You’re suddenly an expert on me?”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Maybe I’m waiting for the right girl.”

She watches me, silent.

“I always thought you and Josh…”

“Me and Josh, Josh and me,” she laughs. “That is,
was
, a mess.”

“You seemed happy enough.”

“At the beginning, yes, but your brother’s got two sides. He can be really mean when he wants, knows exactly how to make it hurt. I can’t be with someone like that anymore. Heck, I don’t know why it took this long to see him for what he really is.”

I pin my eyes to hers. She’s opening up to me.
Keep going.

“The truth?” she continues. “He was cheating on me, probably the whole time.”

I nod solemnly in response. “I’m not going to defend him. I kind of want to kick his ass, to be honest.”

“Why? It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“I care about you, Scar. I always have. I always will.”

“That’s sweet, Jensen, really, but—”

“It’s the truth. You’re,”
don’t fuck it up,
“one of a kind.”

“Yeah, so special and unique I couldn’t see what was happening right in front of me, with my own boyfriend no less.”

I reach out and hold her shoulder, keep my hand there, fingers burning against her skin. “Don’t beat yourself up over this. Promise me?”

A single tear rolls down her cheek. At that moment I want to cut Josh’s fucking balls off.

“Why?” she says simply, wet eyes searching my own.

“Why what?”

She shakes her head. “All those years ago, Jensen. It was obvious. It was
right
.”

I take her other shoulder, pull her closer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You, stupid. Why didn’t
you
make a move?”

SCARLET

Jensen sits forward. That tiny T-shirt he’s wearing can hardly contain him. “Scar…”

I pick up the remote and pause the movie, a close-up of Gosling smiling on as if to say ‘This’ll be fun’.

Jensen goes to begin again and looks down at his hands. He can’t seem to decide what to say, or whether to tell me…

I rub my shoulder. “If you had asked me out back then, I would have said yes, just so you know.”

He looks up, eyes incandescent from the TV. “I know.”

“So,” I say, drawing it out the ‘O’, “why didn’t you make a move? I thought we were, you know, a sure thing.”

Jensen nostrils flare with an indrawn breath, his huge shoulders easing. “You really want to know?”

I brace myself. “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

Another pause, another moment of hesitation before he finally gives in. “Okay, here it is. You remember where we used to live in Rosie?”

“You guys were a couple of blocks away, cute three-bedroom with that gargoyle thing on the roof.”

“Right. Well, Josh and I didn’t spend much time at home back then, as you can probably remember. We actually spent most of the day dreaming up ways to see you.”

“You mean get past my dad.”

Jensen laughs, thinking back. “He wasn’t exactly a big fan of either of us, thought we were a bad influence.”

“You were.”

Jensen straightens up, hands out. “Hey, I was an angel back then. Josh was the rebel without a cause.”

He’s right. Dad hated them, once told me he’d clip their dicks clean off if they showed themselves at our place again. I’ve always wondered what he’d make of Josh and me dating for the last couple of years.
Probably have a damn heart attack.
“And what does this have to do with your feelings for me at the time?”

Jensen eases. “We were competitive, Scar. Still are. We both wanted you, but it was Josh who told me you guys were dating, said I was too much of a pussy to ask you, that you wanted a ‘real man’. I believed him, the sucker I was back then. I kind of looked up to him, you know. He was the first of us to get laid, to smoke a joint… He was, I don’t know, cool.”

“He was,” I sigh, knowing full well that luster of abandon and excitement is gone.

“Thing is, he told me this weeks before you actually
did
start dating. He made me think you were off-limits and I bought it like a fucking infomercial. When I found out, months later, it was too late to make my move. You guys were happy. That proverbial ship had sailed and I wasn’t about to drown trying to get aboard.”

“Jensen… I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That your boyfriend was a liar? Like I said, you were happy. I didn’t want to be the one to bring a tear to your eye. Hell, I still don’t. It kills me to see you upset. I mean, fuck, I feel like I should apologize for everything Josh has done. We’re two halves of a whole, after all.”

“You’re nothing like him.”

“No? You remember that angel I
used
to be? I sold my soul soon after, realized Josh was right, that I lost you to him because I was weak, a push-over, always doing the right thing.”

“So,” I interject, “you decided to run off the rails a little. I remember. That poor sheriff was always on your case.”

“Haven’t really stopped, have I?”

“Are you happy, Jensen? Honestly?”

“No,” he states simply.

“If I had a DeLorean, a clock tower, I’d hit eighty-eight miles in a second to get back to that moment, tell Josh to fuck off and take you for myself.”

I’ve been such an idiot all this time. The right guy was there all along, destroying and breaking himself down because of
me
.

You can fix it. It’s not too late.

I watch Jensen carefully, feel the draw between us, the space closing and the air charged.

For once in your life, Scarlet, do something. Make a move.

So I do.

I see Jensen in front of me—not the womanizer, the superstar, but the boy I knew from around the corner who always had a smile on his face and a purpose in his step. He’s still there. I know it.

I lean forward and Jensen doesn’t stop me. I lean until our lips come together and the world really does stop, the only singular thing that exists in that moment the kiss.

He reaches up and cups the side of my face, draws me deeper into the kiss, our tongues shifting and searching in heat. He moves against me and I feel the weight of him, become blanketed by his warmth. I run my hands up his sides, the chiseled grooves of his chest begging to be released.

His hand slides up into my hair, rakes through it. His fingers are softer than I expect, his ripped body looming over me now, pressing me into the arm of the sofa. I open my mouth wider, let my lips roll and curl over his, the sexual tension between us ratcheting up until the heat between my legs is unbearable. I feel the prickle all over, pins and needles of awareness spanning out over my skin.

A snow drift of sensation runs down my spine, my sex stirring with arousal and wetness, and it is precisely then I realize my body hasn’t reacted this way in years, maybe never.

I break away for breath, enough to whisper “Jensen” against the pulse in his neck, savor the cinnamon scent coming off his skin.

He pants against me, his length an iron bar against the top of my thigh.

His free hand runs between my legs, grasps the crotch of my shorts, his palm kneading my pussy, my hips lifting, straining to meet this new pressure.

“Fuck, you’re sexy,” he confesses into the shell of my ear, his voice bringing a smile to my lips as the butt of his palm rubs and releases below. He nudges the nape of my neck with his nose, my body buzzing, electric.

I moan, surprised by how thick and strained my voice has become. I run my fingers up his jaw, go against the grain.

“I’ve waited so long for this,” he says, words laced with need, his cock twitching against my thigh. All I want is him inside me, as soon as possible. I’ll deal with the emotional aftermath later.

His lips meet mine again, arms shifting and wrapping possessively around me, pulling me tight against him. My heart hammers aloud. I hear it in my ears, feel it beating through my body as I groan into his mouth, a groan that echoes and vibrates deep in my core. His tongue grows aggressive in its pursuit, the intensity and desperation of his actions increasing by the second.

It’s happening. My god is it happening.

All this time I’ve been with the wrong brother.

It’s not too late.

It’s like nothing I’ve felt before, his hands digging into my hair and tugging my head back to reveal my open throat, kisses trailing down towards my cleavage. I’m enveloped in his heat and desire, moaning as his hard-on pushes into my leg.

I grab and grope at him, the sensible Scarlet lost to a femme fatale I’ve never seen before, a sexual stranger ready to conquer all.

I run my hands down to the hem of his tee and start to lift it upwards. He leans back, shedding it easily and showing off the perfect planes of his chest, the cluster of abs at his core taunting, inviting my lips, my fingers, to touch and taste and sample what I’ve been missing.

He draws my tank top over my head, my ample breasts held before falling back into place, my nipples drawn into stiff cigar stubs, flushed and dusky.

I’m growing lightheaded from my blood shooting around my body. He devours me, my breasts crushed against his chest and his kiss showing exactly who is in control as we melt into one another.

He lowers his head and tweaks a nipple with his thumb, sucks it into his hungry mouth until I literally see stars come to life, Gosling continuing to smile on.

He sits back, his breathing shallow and fast, fingers hooking into my shorts and pulling hard. I lift my butt to make it easier, small, needy whimpers leaving my mouth.

He stops, just like that.

I’m so hot, so starved and ready, that the voice which emerges from my mouth is barely my own. “Jensen?”

He’s looking at my body, eyes fixed to my chest still fighting for oxygen. “Scar, I can’t.”

Noooooo. Please, God.

I go to pull him down to me, but he sits back further. “It’s not right. I’m taking advantage of you.”

Jensen Jetstream Collins, the actual incarnation of sex, and he’s turning
me
down? I can’t believe it. “Come on,” I plead. “It’s okay.”

He stands, searching for his shirt. “Not like this. You’re emotional, vulnerable. I don’t want this to be something you regret.

He finds his shirt and pulls it on.

I sit up and cover myself with one arm. “Jensen, I’m here. I want this.”

He sits, keeping his distance. “Do you? Do you really? Or is this just a way to get back at Josh?”

“This has nothing to do with him.”

Suddenly, my arousal is replaced by something far darker. I almost don’t recognize it until it covers all else, fills my body completely. It’s anger. “You’re rejecting me?”

He looks away, jeans still tented. “No, it’s not like that.”

“No? Because that’s
exactly
how it feels right now.”

My eyes are growing wet again. I’m losing control. “I open myself up to you, tell you things I’ve never told anyone and you, you tease me? Lead me on, only to what? Turn me down, discard me like I’m not even worth your attention?”

He clams up.

“Let’s talk about this.”

I don’t know what’s come over him. Someone else is sitting on my shoulder, taunting,
It’s you. He’s immune to your charms. You don’t think he could do better? He could have any girl. Why the hell would he want a used, frigid waste of space like you?

No,
but maybe there is a glimmer of truth in that voice. Maybe I’m not hot enough for him. He’s over me, moved on.

Anger flares again and I want him gone, want to be alone with myself like I should be. Why did I even open the door, allow myself to be deluded into the idea that this could be a fairytale in the making, a second chance?
Cinderella you are not.
Why do you think Josh was sleeping around?

The thought of Josh with that girl does it.

Holding myself with one arm, I lash out with the other, swatting Jensen on the shoulder. “Go! Just… go!”

“Scarlet, it’s not—”

I slap at him harder. It’s like attacking a brick wall. “Go! Get out.”

“Fine,” he stands, heading for the door.

I watch him go, sobbing. Another voice says I should run after him, try to sort this out, but it’s too late. The door closes. He doesn’t slam it, throw a tantrum like I want him to. He just leaves.

He leaves like he was never here to begin with.