Page 14 of Playing to Win

“I suppose.” Gone is the teasing, and I’m left with more on my mind than getting off with Theo.

“Shower, then we’ll talk.” He must realize my mood change. Melancholy surrounds us.

“Join me?” I ask once we make it inside. He lowers me to the ground, gingerly, as if I’m a delicate flower.

“Yeah, I will.” He moves around me to open the glass shower door. I work on the knot at my waist of my loose sweatpants. Fawn really went for comfort. She’s a woman after my own heart. I pull them down, hissing when my thumb hits a bruise. It’s hard to hide it from Theo. “Move your hands. I’ll undress you.” He drops to his knees, taking one sock off first then the other. My long-oversized shirt covers me from my neck to mid thigh. I will forever be in Fawn’s corner when it comes to her selecting clothes—nothing fancy, all about coverage, including the bikini-style panties I usually reserve for period days.

“Theo.” I want his attention before he stands up to help with my shirt after my ankles clear the pants one step at a time. “I’m okay, alright? Nothing is broken. I’m here, and that’s what matters.” Our eyes lock. As much as I’ve attempted to reassure him, when he stands, pulling my shirt up along the way, it’s all for nothing.

“Fairy, you might be okay, but I’m not. Jesus, I should have made it ten times worse.” He tenderly kisses my knee where some skin was torn away when I was dragged across the ground after attacking Brian. It takes me a moment to realize what he just said, conveying the reason for the wet hair, change of clothes, and why he was unusually quiet the whole way home.

“Theo, please tell me you didn’t do anything that is going to cause us to only see each other during conjugal visits.” He continues kissing his way up the outside of my leg, grazing the massive bruise with his lips.

“Conjugal means marriage. Are you admitting that you want to marry me?” I roll my eyes at his remark. I walked right into that.

“No, the wordsI will marry youdid not leave my lips in that sentence, caveman.”

“Except they just did. It’s good to know I’ve got a chance, at least.” He stands up with the hem of my shirt in his fingers. “Arms up.” Clearly, he’s going to take everything off, which means he’ll see my lovely not-so-cute cotton underwear. Oh, well, he’s seen me at my worst already, multiple times if you count me being on my hands and knees scrubbing floors. Then my stint in the hospital. This should be a piece of cake.

“I’m serious, Theo. I don’t look good in only stretchy clothing, and orange with your complexion is not going to work. Please tell me you didn’t do anything that could put you behind bars because of me.” I cup his cheeks, having to reach up and on the tips of my toes. Theo doesn’t care for that very much, clearly, because I’m being lifted up and set down on the counter. The cold granite causes my body to tense for a moment until I adjust.

“He’s gone, for good. I’m not going into detail. You don’t need to know anything else. His name won’t leave your lips again, and that shit stain will never hurt anyone else on earth.” Theo holds firm, staying a step back as he steps out of his shoes, discards his socks, and then pulls his shirt over his head by the back of the collar. Another distinct factor of when he came back: gone was his button-down shirt. A black cotton shirt was stretched across his broad chest, and jeans encased his firm thighs. My panties should not be saturated with wetness, but given the circumstances, they are. This man, who I never thought could be anything other than a billionaire dickhead, is so much more, and he’s proving it to me in every single way.

“Okay.” He continues his slow and steady stripping of his clothes. His deft hands work on the button of his jeans, the zipper following. “Are you sure I can’t persuade you to have some fun?” My hand reaches out when his dick bobs out of his boxer briefs, and Theo does the least of what I expect: he steps forward. The feel of his hand on top of mine, so much smaller than his palm, and his length… Jesus, I’m still in awe how he fit inside me. He guides me as I jack his cock.

“We’re doing this my way and my way only.” His lips seal to mine while he keeps the tempo of us working together as he kisses me. There’s a tenderness while still maintaining a powerful and dominating feel. And Theo is the only one who is capable of me giving in to him so freely.

TWENTY-ONE

Theo

“Theo,you can’t keep me captive here forever,” Danica says when we enter the penthouse. She was cleared for light duty a few days after the incident. Since leaving the doctor’s office, she’s been on a damn tangent about every single damn thing. In the car it was about going back to work, on the way up in the elevator it was about getting caught up on her school stuff. Funnily enough, Mallory is the one who won’t let her come back to work yet. I’m not opposed either. I’m fucking relishing that it’s working in all of our favors even if my fairy won’t admit it.

I hum, staying quiet while she stomps her feet through the house on her way from the entrance into the kitchen. The past few days, I’ve been working from home, watching over her as she napped or rested. She attempted to fight it for a while but eventually gave up. Her body finally shut down, and she slept. Probably more than she ever has with the crazy schedule she’s kept. One day, she must have slept for a solid six hours, woke up, went to the bathroom, ate, and fell right back asleep instantaneously only to sleep for another eight hours or so. A quick call to Vanessa let me know that it was more than normal, that the only time to bring her back in was if her memory started tripping her up. Yesterday, she napped, nothing like that first full day home, so it relieved the balloon of worry in my chest.

“Are you going to respond, or am I talking to myself?” I’m watching her the entire time. She has no idea that while the guys and I were busy taking care of Brian, there were other plans in the works. The apartment building is officially purchased by a shell corporation Sly set up, the elevator is now up and running, they keypad is as well, and new lights are being installed as well as new paint in the main area. There are still a few things left to do, like a new roof, appliances in each apartment, carpet, and painting. Which also means workers traipsing in and out of what would be Danica’s apartment if I hadn’t moved her out. No fucking way was I going to let them be around her or her things. I didn’t care if they were cleared for White House security; it wasn’t happening.

“I’m listening, but, fairy, what you don’t seem to understand is that I know at the end of the day, you’ll be in my bed when we go to sleep and when we wake up.” She is either oblivious or hasn’t had a chance to really snoop around the penthouse.

“I have an apartment I’m paying for, and I can’t just live with you for the sake of living with you.” Her clothes hang next to mine in the closet. The drawers in the dresser are much the same. The small desk she had set up in her living room now stands next to mine in my home office. Everything else—books, magazines, and a few mementos—are currently in boxes in there as well.

“Who says you can’t?” She doesn’t reply for a moment, instead pulls out all the makings for sandwiches—bread, cheese, lunchmeat, tomatoes, lettuce, and condiments. Then she attacks the fruit containers as well. I’m about to make a comment about how much she can fit in her arms when she finally quits picking shit out of the fridge and walks toward the counter. “You’re the one saying you can’t, when all this between you and me, it’s fucking real. I’m not going anywhere. This,”—I point between the two of us—“what we have is not going anywhere, and neither are you.”

Danica stops what she was doing, leaves the food on the counter, and makes her way to where I’m standing until her neck is tilted up and my mine is tilted down. Her green eyes are full of an emotion I can’t quite put my finger on. So, I let her silence say enough until she’s ready to tell me what she needs to. This lasts entirely too long for my liking, us being on two opposites levels. Danica and her much smaller self, tiny is what she is compared to me. More than a foot shorter. The height difference would usually bother some people; it doesn’t me. Especially when she has to be on top, controlling how deep my cock can slide into her sweet little pussy.

My mouth waters at thinking about ending this self-imposed torture of keeping my dick out of her cunt this week while she recovers. Now that my conscience is clear because the doctor is happy with her recovery, I’m going to make it my mission to get inside her. My hands grip her small waist, and I lift her up. “Theo!” Her hands go to my shoulders, holding on as if I’d drop her. Fuck, that would never happen. Her ass meets the counter, and my hips move closer until I’m pressed right against her core. The thin leggings are no barrier. Her heat is intense, searing through the light fabric we’re both wearing. It wouldn’t take much to rip a hole in the seam, and knowing she’s bare beneath, I’d loosen the strings of my joggers, let my cock lose, and sink inside her until the thought of her leaving me vanishes.

“What, fairy, what excuse were you going to come up with next? Maybe you should look around, the bedroom, the office, the bathroom, and you’d see you are everywhere.” I pause between the last three words, letting them sink in.

“Fine, I’ll stay.” The tips of her fingers playing at the nape of my neck don’t convey the words or how she says them. Danica Powers is full of shit, and it doesn’t take much to shut her up when my mouth lands on hers. The soft whimper is all the access I need to slide my tongue inside, one hand at the nape of her neck, gently massaging her, and the other trailing up the length of her spine. Her taste is like a shot of whiskey, going straight to my head, and when her body relaxes against mine, giving me the majority of her weight, she’s right where I want her—putty in my hands and deep in my bones.

TWENTY-TWO

Danica

“You do realizeI went from a woman who worked non-stop to one of leisure, don’t you?” I tell Mallory in her office a week later. Why I’m still on her payroll is a question no one will answer. Theo is still in super overprotective caveman mode, taking it to a whole new level. My job? Well, it’s basically cleaning the penthouse and going to school if I can’t do it online, and, well, I am freaking bored to tears.

“Honey, you were not a woman who worked non-stop; you worked your ass to the bone. Theo and I both want you to focus on schoolwork. If you’re that bored, please, for the love of God, take over some of the administrative crap in this place before I sell Clean and Gleam, find a hunky man, and go on a permanent vacation. Hell, maybe the hunk will feed me grapes while fanning me beneath the cabanas.” She wiggles her eyebrows. It’s then I notice there’s a mountain of paperwork on the sideboard when there usually isn’t. The office isn’t as clean as it usually is either. Hmm, something is going on with my boss and best friend. I can’t quite figure out what, but I’m going to.

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