Page 56 of Play for Keeps

“I’m there,” he panted. And his warning was no lie. His cock pulsed with the need to let go. He clenched his teeth hard, and he wished he had the stamina to hold back indefinitely. Make her keep going. Never stop.

Her breathing caught again, then she gave a maddening half squeak, half moan that told him she was teetering right on the edge with him. “I want to suck you so hard you’ll think I turned you inside out.”

“And I’m gonna fill you up.” Words burst out of him with the first pulse of his climax. He went wild. Hot, wet lashes of release streaked his stomach, thighs, and hand, but his orgasm didn’t stop him. He pumped away, fisting his cock in perfect syncopation with the quick puffs of breath exploding in his ear. “I’m gonna come in your mouth. In your pussy. On your tits, your belly, your ass. I’m gonna cover you in me, because you’ve already got me crazy for you.”

She came with a cry she didn’t even bother to stifle. One of the things he liked about Millie—she was a woman who knew how to take her pleasure and revel in it.

But she never let emotion overtake her.

He needed to remember she wasn’t the type to be swept away. And as much as he hated to admit as much, he kind of was.

When he was young, he had dived headfirst into the sea of willing women that surrounded professional athletes. In Europe, he’d seen and done a few things he couldn’t imagine asking an American girl to do. A couple of sophisticated French girls had laughed at what he’d called his “American prudery.”

He’d fucked a Russian dancer with a pierced clit for a while. The sex had been great and the girl nearly insatiable, but he’d bailed when she suggested he poke a hole through his dick. He’d been relieved when his contract was up and he had an excuse to pull up his good old American underpants and run back to the United States with all his parts intact.

He’d thrown himself into coaching and his postgraduate studies with the same single-minded focus he’d brought to the court. And the day Mari first walked into his lecture hall, he’d made up his mind to have her. She’d been so beautiful. So fresh-faced. At least in those days. She was no virgin, of course, but after the excesses he’d seen as a player, her Midwestern sensibilities were a balm. But everything changed not long after they started seeing one another exclusively.

Letting his head fall back, he listened to the sound of Millie’s ragged breathing as he tried to pinpoint exactly when he’d lost the handle on his marriage. First, he had bought her a pair of perfect tits. Mari was self-conscious about the size of her small breasts. While he’d been perfectly satisfied with them, he had wanted her to be happy and comfortable in her own skin, so he’d paid for the augmentation.

The wedding had been a circus. He blamed Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries. Mari’d watched their whole wedding fiasco with rapt attention and figured since she was marrying a basketball player too, she should have the same. Ty hadn’t had the heart to point out he was a somewhat failed and now-retired ballplayer. He also didn’t have a bevy of television executives bankrolling their nuptials. The wedding should have been a big, fat red flag, but he’d been neck deep before reason made even the slightest bit of headway.

After the honeymoon—two weeks at an exclusive Bora Bora resort she’d seen on some celebrity gossip show—she’d moved into his small house off Eastern University’s campus and started her relocation campaign. The offer from Wolcott had given Mari the perfect opportunity to buy and furnish her dream home.

But no matter how much he gave, nothing was ever enough. Between the weight of her demands and the resentment building inside him, their marriage had started to show the first stress fractures. And he’d let those go as well, took the path of least resistance. Each wave of discontent had pushed his relationship with Mari closer to the breakers. He hadn’t done anything to hold off the inevitable. Frankly, he hadn’t cared enough to try. When he’d first heard the rumblings about her infidelities, he’d even been a little relieved. He hadn’t expected his star player, the kid he’d helped groom for greatness, to betray him as well.

“Ty?”

He jolted at the sound of Millie’s voice in his ear. Pulling the phone away, he gave his head a sharp shake to disperse any lingering reveries and glanced down at himself. He was a mess. The liquid fire that jetted out of him minutes before was now a cool, sticky reminder that he was alone. Again. Jacking off in his living room because the woman he was seeing thought she should call all the shots. A flash fire of anger ignited inside him. He scowled at the sad, sorry shambles he’d made of himself and cursed under his breath.

“You okay?” she asked.

No. He was far from okay. He was righteously pissed. He’d wanted to do right by her, and she wanted to toy with him. Yes, he’d told himself he could wait. He’d be patient and let her come around to seeing things his way in her own time. But he wasn’t going to play these games for long.

“I’m fine,” he answered, clipping the words off short. “Thanks for the story, Mil. I have to go get cleaned up. See you tomorrow.”

Without waiting for her response, he ended the call and dropped the phone to the floor beside his glass of scotch. “Why do I bother?” he muttered as he used the tail of his once perfectly pressed shirt to clean himself up.

Apparently, reminiscence and bitterness were two main ingredients in whatever witchcraft were needed to conjure up the ghosts of big mistakes barely past. His phone rang, and the screen lit up. Mari’s smiling face beamed up at him. He shoved himself up out of the chair, wincing as he yanked his shorts and jeans up over his hips. “That’s all I need,” he grumbled.

Ty stepped carefully around the abandoned drink and the shimmying phone. He made it two steps before the anger gripped him by the throat again, and he whirled to glare at the photo on the phone’s display. He’d snapped the picture here, in this room. The couch and chair had just been delivered, and Mari’d been so proud of her decorating skills. And he’d been happy to see her happy.

“Ain’t nobody happy now,” he said, directing the pronouncement toward the phone.

As if the damn thing heard him, it fell silent, and the call kicked over to voicemail. Swooping down, Ty dragged his hand along the floor until he scooped up the glass. No message alert chimed, so he bolted the drink, welcoming the burn of liquid fire scorching its way through his chest and down into his belly.

His mouth twisted into a grimace, he eyed the now-silent phone with trepidation. He wasn’t interested in anything Mari had to say. She had gotten what she wanted—a hotshot star in the making and a chunk of Ty’s nest egg. He had gotten his freedom. They had nothing left to say to each other. They’d said all that needed to be said in her lawyer’s office.

Shuffling his feet, he set the glass on an end table as he passed, then wandered into the powder room off the hall. The sight that greeted him wasn’t pretty. The lines between his eyebrows and around his mouth cut grooves into his skin. His eyes looked dull and tired. He needed a haircut. Leaning heavily on the pedestal sink, he peered into the mirror. “Get a grip. Tell her you’re not playing these games.”

He blinked, then snorted at his own theatrics. Flipping on the tap, he ran cool water over his right hand, washing away the residue of the evening’s activities. He was right. He knew he was. He had things he needed to say to Millie. Things that had nothing to do with naughty stories, yanking his own chain, and this power struggle they had going on. He needed to figure out a way to tell her he’d give her whatever she needed without coming off sounding like a pushover.

“Yeah, good luck, buddy.”

Chapter 14

Ty found few things as soothing as the thrum of a ball bouncing off hardwood. Eyes locked on the rim, he bent his knees and sent the ball arcing through the air. The previous year, their team trainer told him he figured Ty to be somewhere between fifty and five hundred jump shots away from total knee replacement. From that day on, Ty stayed well within the arc, and he made damn sure his feet never left the floor.

Palming the ball, he tucked it firmly against his hip and trudged to the foul line. He was on number forty-three of the hundred free throws he’d assigned himself.

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