Ballsy Read online

  “It’s all in your head,” I confirm.

  “I did try to give you the stink eye when I saw you take a beer,” she points out. “But alas, it appears that my patients value my professional counseling very poorly because they insist on drinking on the eve of a big game.”

  “This patient of yours is very grateful for all of your spectacularly brilliant dietary knowledge.” I amble toward her with a goofy grin on my face. “I only had two beers. Maybe three. Definitely still in control of myself. Which is more than I can say for… Well, everyone out there.”

  “But not everyone in here,” she shoots back, also with a smile.

  I close the distance between us and plant a kiss on her cheek. I work a trail of kisses until my lips touch hers.

  And then it’s a frenzy.

  Joey tries to unzip my pants, but I stop her, cuffing both of her wrists with my hands. It’s a good thing my cut is healing nicely, or I wouldn’t be able to keep a grip on her.

  “Hey,” she whines. “Don’t tell me you decided to come all the way to my room only to get to first base.”

  “Not at all.” I kiss her again. “But if memory serves, last time the foreplay was all about me. I want to even the score.”

  That gets Joey’s interest. “Oh?”

  “Let me just…” I cross the room in two strides and lock the door. “Gotta make sure we won’t have any interruptions.”

  “Good thinking.”

  Just as quickly, I near her again and scoop her in my arms. She yelps as I lift her mid-air. My only response is to kiss her softly while I make my way to the bed. I set her down and start peeling off her shirt.

  “The lights,” she says breathlessly.

  “Oh, no.” I shake my head and give her my best impish grin. “The lights stay on. I want to see all of you.”

  Joey trembles.

  “Now, I do believe the lady accused me of being sloshed,” I say as I pull her shorts down, leaving only her underwear in play. “I offer Exhibit A to prove that my fine motor skills are well and intact.”

  “Oh?” She raises an eyebrow. “And how do you plan on doing that?”

  I spread her legs and position myself between her thighs. Slowly and deliberately, I lower my face until I’m less than an inch from her pussy. Joey props herself up on a stack of pillows and watches with avid curiosity to see what my next move will be.

  “I’ll let you be the judge,” I murmur softly.

  Joey is beyond the point of caring. She bucks her hips, pushing her sex closer to my face. I hang back, shaking my head. “Tsk.” I click my tongue. “Patience.”

  “You might be giving me too much credit,” she breathes.

  Without breaking eye contact, I slide my finger under the fabric of her panties. Her skin is soft everywhere, but it’s smooth as silk here. I caress her for a couple of beats and then fold her panties along her slit so only a sliver of it covers her clit. The rest of her is exposed.

  “Take it off,” she whispers.

  “No.”

  I trace the outline of her exposed pussy lips with the tip of my tongue, taking my sweet time. She moans and tries grinding against my face, but I hold her hips down.

  “No,” I repeat. “I want to take my time with you.”

  She whimpers as I get within a millimeter of her clit. Her pussy is swollen, seriously wet already, but I want to keep that sweet mound of hers covered until the last possible moment.

  Only because it drives her wild.

  “This is torture,” she breathes.

  “What is?” I ask with an air of innocence. I run my tongue from the slick base of her hole all the way to the most sensitive outer edge of her clit. “This?”

  She inhales sharply. “Yes. Please—”

  I do it again and she raises her hips to try to get me closer to where she wants my tongue the most.

  I resist. “Not so fast.”

  “Fast?” She’s incredulous. Her expression is ravenous. “You’re doing everything but going fas—”

  She gasps as I lift the drenched fabric of her panties and flick my tongue over her swollen clit.

  “Oh fuck,” she murmurs.

  I give her clit another flick, then another, starting with a light touch and increasing the pressure and intensity. My hands are no longer forcing her hips down, so little by little, Joey grinds her sex to my face, matching her rhythm to my own.

  I bury my tongue deep inside her. She yells out, lost in pleasure. I feel her legs quivering over my shoulders. I double back to her clit, covering it with my mouth and sucking softly on it. I bring my hand to her pussy, trace along the outer edge of her core, and slide two fingers inside.

  Her pussy squeezes around me. Joey looks down through heavy-lidded eyes, her mouth forming a perfect O as she moans. I make a come-hither motion with my finger, hitting her G-spot at just the right angle. She spreads her legs further apart and moves her hips up and down, bouncing on my hand.

  She tastes so fucking good, feels so fucking good. It’s going to take some serious restraint to stop myself creaming in my pants.

  My cock, already harder than it’s ever been, throbs. I glance down at my groin and curse myself for not taking my clothes off before I started. I direct my gaze at Joey, who’s tracking my eyes with her own. As if reading my mind, she pulls on the sleeve of my shirt, gesturing for me to hoist myself up.

  So I do. She kisses me, not stopping her hip movement for even a single second. I start to pull my fingers out so I can undress, but her hand quickly snares my forearm.

  “Stay,” she says, her breathing shaky.

  In return, I bury my fingers deeper. She sighs in satisfaction.

  With surprising dexterity, she manages to unzip my pants. I start to say something when I realize she’s whipping my cock out. She spits in her hand while also clamping down on my fingers. “Keep going,” she says with a husky voice. She wraps her hand around my cock and starts jerking it.

  She wants to torment me, too, I realize.

  My swollen shaft twitches in her hand. I can feel the blood rushing, the pulsation of need that’s rising.

  Fuck this.

  In one fell swoop, I pull my fingers out and thrust my hips, not stopping until I’m balls deep inside her.

  “Oh.” Joey startles, no longer able to control her moaning.

  Her pussy starts to spasm, gripping my cock in a tight clench. I groan and slide out—all the way out. Before Joey can protest, I bury my cock deep inside her again. And again. Slow. Maddeningly slow.

  I groan as the walls inside her clench tightly around me. All pretense of control is gone. I pummel into her, pounding roughly in quick, shallow thrusts. Her entire body vibrates against me, her sweet pussy quivering without stop.

  “I’m going to come,” Joey whispers, just before her legs jerk and she yells out in surprised, ecstatic pleasure.

  “Fuck,” I groan. I was almost there myself, but the sheer intensity of her orgasm drives me over the edge. I thrust deep inside her and explode, my orgasm releasing with all the power of a volcanic eruption.

  Joey cries out once more. Her pussy clenches again and suddenly, quite unexpectedly, she squirts all over the bed, hands whipping down to her crotch as if she doesn’t know what the hell’s going on.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, that’s so hot,” I say, pulling out.

  “Wow.” She’s panting, her cheeks rosy and patchy red. “Wow.”

  It’s all she seems capable of saying for the next several minutes.

  She looks down between us, up onto my eyes. “That’s never happened before.”

  She takes my face in her hand and kisses me, slow and deep.

  “That was the best fucking orgasm of my life,” she declares. “I’m just—”

  “Me, too,” I tell her.

  “Well, looks like you got quite an extra exercise session in before the big game tomorrow,” Joey teases. She lies on her side, her nipples still stiff and pointy, directed at me. She follows my gaze and
glances down at her chest. When she realizes what has my attention captive, she bursts out laughing. “Well, well.”

  “Aren’t I lucky?” I outline the contours of her body with my hand. “Fuck, that was amazing, Jo.”

  Out of nowhere, she becomes quiet. Almost withdrawn.

  “What?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

  “Are we going to continue hiding this?” She gestures to our bodies leaning against each other. “Because… I don’t know. That doesn’t feel right.”

  The strain in her voice is palpable. I take her hand in mine and kiss it. “I’m done hiding how I feel about you.”

  She looks into my eyes, searching. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  The smile she gives me could light the entire world. “Okay.”

  “In fact,” I continue, “I’m going to tell him tomorrow.”

  Joey frowns. “Shouldn’t we wait until after the game? Maybe until after the wedding? It feels like so much is going on already this weekend…”

  “No.” Nothing will weaken my resolve. “It has to be tomorrow. I told you, I’m done hiding this.”

  She bites her lip in that sexy manner of hers. “Wow. When you make up your mind, you really mean business.”

  “This? Us?” I take a deep breath. “I need for it to be out in the open. If I’m going to tell him about us, I’m also going to tell him what I think about this wedding fiasco.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We keep pussy-footing—” I stop myself. “Sorry.”

  “What?”

  “‘Pussy-footing.’”

  “Ah.” She yawns. “I don’t care. Go on.”

  I laugh. “Someone needs to give it to him straight. That he’s making a huge mistake and… I don’t know, Jo, I just need to talk to him.”

  She sits up and nods. “I think you’re right, but I worry about how he’s going to take it.”

  “If I call him out on the bullshit emotionally manipulative replies early on, he’ll stop.” Of that, I’m confident. Tomorrow, Baylor is going to not only listen to me, he’s going to really hear what I have to say. I’ll make damn certain of it.

  “I wonder if we’ll get uninvited from the wedding,” Joey muses. “That would actually be pretty okay with me.”

  I chuckle, can’t shake what just happened out of my head. “Hell, there might not even be a wedding.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  KIERAN

  The final buzzer blares, signaling the end of the game. We win handily. In fact, we were the only team to score all night.

  I’m on a roll, I think, but I recognize the internal humor for what it is: deflection. Avoidance of a subject I know I have to face. I honestly wasn’t able to talk to Baylor all day. After leaving Joey a note and slipping out of her room early the next morning, I was stunned to find just how absolutely trashed the suite was.

  Coach Allen’s reaction earned us a day of ceaseless hell until the game.

  I play the conversation I had with Joey last night in my mind. That Kieran was certain of himself. So why am I full of doubts now? Why is it so difficult to simply lay it all out for Baylor? I have an inkling that at least the Joey thing won’t come as a shock.

  But given the wedding is tomorrow, I decide to lead with the Rachel part of the conversation.

  I approach him after we’ve both showered. I intentionally dawdled and asked Leroy to spread the word to the other guys I needed to talk to Baylor, so by the time we’re getting dressed, the locker room is deserted.

  “Hey, Bay, we need to talk.”

  He looks up and nods. “Sure. What’s up?” He looks around the locker room. “Wow, is everyone gone already?”

  “Er, I guess.”

  “You know how people talk about having cold feet? Well, I don’t understand that at all. I can’t wait to get to the chapel and tie the knot.” Baylor lets out a contented sigh. “I feel like the luckiest bastard alive, you know that?”

  Shit.

  Leave it to Baylor to make even what are predictably excruciating conversations all the more intolerable.

  “Yeah, about that,” I start. “I actually want to talk to you about tomorrow. And Rachel.”

  Baylor shuts the locker he’s using and leans against it, calm as can be. “What about tomorrow?” He grins. “And Rachel?”

  “Well.” I take a deep breath. “Look, I’m just going to say it, okay? And I want you to let me get it all out.”

  “Dude, you’re starting to worry me.” But Baylor still keeps that shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “She’s an amazing woman, but she’s mine.”

  I love Baylor like a brother but the only thing that keeps me from knocking that stupid expression off his face is the knowledge what I’m about to say is going to hit him far harder. “That’s the thing, though. Is she?”

  Brow furrowed, Baylor asks, “What?”

  “Is she? Yours?” I sigh. “Look, man, I hate I have to tell you this. You have to believe me, I tried to rationalize what I saw in every conceivable way, but I just… There’s only so much bullshit you can sprinkle on a bad situation before you’re forced to deal with the fact that it’s all a whole lotta shit.”

  “I can’t say I follow what you’re saying.” Baylor sat down on the bench opposite the lockers. “At all.”

  “Okay, it’s like this. About two months ago, Rachel came on to me. It wasn’t a subtle, too-friendly thing I misunderstood or misinterpreted. She walked in on me after I had just showered in our locker room back home and she—”

  Baylor is on his feet faster than you can count to one. He charges at me, stopping just short of shoving me into the lockers. Standing nose-to-nose with me, he says in a low, menacing voice, “What the fuck are you saying?”

  I push him away. “Dude, back off.”

  Baylor doesn’t budge. “I want you to finish what you were saying.”

  “Baylor.” I keep my voice level. Steady.

  If I lose my cool, this will descend into a brawl. And neither lovesick Baylor nor me, the bearer of bad news, are the problem. Rachel is. I need to stay calm because someone has to drive it home to Baylor while there is still time to stop this shotgun wedding of theirs before it ruins him completely.

  “You—my best friend, the guy I call my brother—are accusing my fiancée, the woman I’m getting married to tomorrow, of coming on to you two months ago.” It’s like he’s battling every word he says. “And you want me to stay calm and docile like I’m a fucking house pet? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Baylor, please listen to me—”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  There. He said it. The exact thing I feared would happen is happening. Contradictory though it may seem, the fact Baylor is reacting exactly as I predicted makes me feel…. Not relieved, because I still need to get it across that thick head of his that his fiancée is going to make a shitty spouse and is not to be trusted. Vindicated is closer to it.

  Here’s the thing: it’s impossible to help someone who does not want to be helped.

  What I’m doing to Baylor right now is a last-resort sort of thing. He didn’t get this hung up over a woman overnight. The fact he’s rushing to walk down the aisle is further proof he does realize on some level that their relationship is shaky at best. If I tried telling him all this two months ago, there’s no telling how he would have reacted. It might have prevented him from staying with her but more likely it would have just strengthened his resolve.

  Or maybe his degree of delusion due to the sunk cost fallacy progressed to dangerous levels in the last two months.

  I don’t really know. Maybe I’m being self-serving and trying to defend the indefensible. Maybe I should have told him the moment it all happened.

  I’m not a saint.

  I just don’t want to see him get crushed under the weight of this soul-sucking relationship of his.

  “Baylor.” I rub my eyes and shake my head. “I hate I have bad news like this to tell you.
I wish I didn’t, but only if there truly weren’t anything to tell. It’s not just me. It’s not a one-time thing. I’ve seen her lay it on pretty thick with other guys on the team—”

  Baylor interrupts me. “You must really hate her. What are you doing, Kieran? What the fuck are you doing? What am I supposed to do with this? If you came and told me you fucked her, that would be something concrete. If you came and told me you saw her fucking someone else, that would be something concrete. Hell, if you came and told me you saw her groping someone, that would be something concrete. I have no idea what the fuck you mean when you say she ‘came on to you’ and that she ‘lays it on pretty thick’ with other guys.”

  “Baylor—”

  “I’m not a fucking cuckold. If my fiancée is cheating on me, do you think I would still want to get married? Do you think that that sounds like me at all?”

  The question hangs in the air. I don’t realize he expects a response until his expression goes from angry to mad-hatter incredulous.

  “Oh.” He starts laughing maniacally. “Holy shit.” Just as suddenly as it came, soon the laughter stops. It’s replaced by raw, naked rage. Baylor hollers, “Really, Kieran? You’re not going to answer that? Are you insinuating that I’m that much of a loser I’ll do and accept anything so long as I get to call Rachel my wife?”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth,” I shout, pushing him away. “I didn’t say that, and I don’t think that. You are changing the subject, you are avoiding the—”

  “Avoiding what?” Baylor bellows. “Avoiding WHAT? I told you, I don’t believe—” He stops abruptly and gets this look on his face. Like he’s hatching some kind of plan.

  “Baylor?”

  Baylor holds up his hand. “We’re going around in circles.” He takes a deep breath. “I want you to repeat everything you just said.”

  “Okay—”

  “Not here. In front of Rachel.”

  My gears grind to a halt.

  I wasn’t expecting that at all. But as I weigh my options under the microscope of Baylor’s expectant, intense stare, I realize that if I don’t oblige, our friendship is over.

  It might be over anyway.

  “Fine.”