Page 9

CHAPTER NINE

KIP

The words of that damn article were still haunting me nine hours after I’d read them.

I was currently sitting in The Kraken with Hayden and Jason and we’d been joined by some of my teammates – Craig, Stan, Craig, Arron, Paul, Ashton and Leo. I recognized a few Sounders players who were coming through the door at that moment, and knew they be joining us soon.

“We’ve got some time off between games that we were using for interviews and stuff, but we’re home for a week, so long as we don’t miss training,” Hayden explained as he sipped on a diet ginger ale.

“Shoulda gone into a man’s sport,” Jason snickered, winking at his son then looking at the glass he was drinking from and wincing. “Diet ginger ale, it spits in the face of all that’s holy.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled back. “I don’t want to push Coach’s good humor right now.”

That I could understand, which was why I was drinking a diet Dr Pepper.

“So, how’s this going to go down?” Craig asked, smiling when the bartender passed him his sparkling water. What good boys we were. “Meg doesn’t want to lose Ashley from the WAGs, so you need to fix it ASAP.”

The WAGs—Wives And Girlfriends—had been blowing up Ashley’s phone when I left, showing moral support and inviting her to things.

I’d been struggling to leave her after the day we’d had, but then the texts and calls had started and Meg had turned up to keep her company, and it’d made it a little easier.

Still, I had a hand on my phone just in case she needed me.

“She’s not going to be lost from the WAGs,” I assured him. “But I want LaValle and Missy to regret every single cent of the money they were paid for their lies.”

All of the men at the table made noises of agreement with me.

See, for decent men, there was a moral code. Making up a petty lie about your ex-girlfriend cheating on you with a pro footballer for money and attention wasn’t unheard of, whatever floats your boat.

But to say in the story you sold about the types of sex the aforementioned ex enjoyed, and how you’d only just ‘pulled out of her’ when she bid on the pro footballer at a charity function for a night of hot sex? And the details he’d added about preferences and inviting other people into the bed… That was just gross and fucked up.

All it would take was one look at Ashley to know it was a lie.

In fact, one look at Cam LaValle and you’d know his micro-dick wouldn’t be able handle that much action— ever !

But not everyone in the world wanted to accept that the stories in gossip magazines were lies, they thought they were nothing but the truth.

‘I was knocked up by an orange alien who came out of the Sound and lay me on a bed of floating petals in the water while we did it’—they believe that shit happened. It was crazy!

There were also enough true stories about high profile sports players in the news, sadly, so especially in cases like ours, people believed it.

He could have put her in danger, wide open to someone attacking her if they caught her out on her own.

That was going to change, though.

And what Missy had said about me, the claims of Ashley outbidding her at the Lust for Life function, how she’d threatened her in the bathrooms, how she’d been ‘inundated’ by hate mail and attacks on social media because of her—it was just nuts and was the shit that should’ve stopped in high school.

“So, what’s the plan of action?” Craig asked as everyone gathered around us.

Of course they knew we had a plan. Things like this don’t happen to you and then just disappear, Jason knew that firsthand.

No, fight fire with fire.

And that’s what we were doing, except the goal was to get Ashley’s reputation back seeing as how she’d taken the most dangerous hit, and to get both of them far away from her.

The next morning…

We were all sitting waiting for Craig to ‘bump’ into Cam at the store.

When he’d mentioned that he regularly saw him at the small store he stopped at every Wednesday when they got fresh fruit delivered, which he swore was the best in Seattle, we’d asked him if he’d mind doing this.

Rajesh had spoken to his friends at the Seattle Police Department, and two police officers in sweats and t-shirts would be with him for it to act as witnesses. Recording him without his consent was illegal, but witnesses who happen to be off duty officers?

My phone was currently on a call with Craig’s, which was sitting in his pocket, and we were all grouped around it, listening to them discuss how to tell if a cantaloupe was ripe or not.

“If they mention squeezing a canteloupe one more time, I’ll lose my mind,” Hayden grunted.

Just then, we heard a familiar voice greet him.

“Hey, Craig. Nice to see you, man.”

Cam LaValle was trying to sound breezy, but we’d seen him looking through the store’s window to find Craig.

“Oh, hey! Cam, isn’t it?”

By remembering his name, Cam would be thinking it was because of his soccer abilities and his ego would be loving it at that moment.

“Yeah,” his smug voice replied, making me want to punch him in the mouth. Just once, that’s all I wanted. One tap to his smug teeth. “Who’s this?”

“Oh, this is Gerardo Mendez. He’s a sports scientist who worked with LA Galaxy for five years but just moved to the Seahawks,” he introduced, and we all looked at each other in surprise.

“Where the hell did he get that shit from?” Jason chuckled. “I thought he was just going to call them his buddies?”

“And this is Elia Domenico who is the assistant coach for A.C. Milan in Italy. Gentlemen, this is Cam LaValle, a soccer player. I said I’d show them around.”

Fortunately for him, he’d used their correct names and Elia spoke fluent Italian seeing as how his family were originally from there, but LA Galaxy and A.C. Milan? If Cam knew anything about the teams, Craig was screwed.

Spoiler alert: Cam knew nothing about the teams, and instead was blown away by the ‘brilliance’ in front of him.

“Holy shit, wow. Great to meet you both. I tried out for the Seattle Sounders, but decided it wasn’t the path I wanted to go down. Why go with a small team when I could join one of the better ones, right?” he lied, making Hayden growl.

Hell, even I was offended by the insult to the team and it wasn’t even mine. Who the hell did this ass think he was? He didn’t decide, he was rejected pure and simple.

“Such a fucking dick,” Stan sighed behind me, getting noises of agreement from all of us.

“Cam LaValle, I’ve heard of your skills,” Elia said, laying on the Italian accent but sounding impressed. “You are team free?”

“I am. I’m focusing on my training so that I can try out for some international teams, maybe even English ones.”

Someone murmuring something sounded from Craig’s end of the line.

When Cam asked him to repeat what he’d said because he didn’t hear it properly, Gerardo said, “That would be unlikely.”

“Why do you say that?” Cam asked, sounding offended.

“I know some of the managers for the Premier League teams, and English footballers have been the center of a lot of drama. The players are the topic of a lot of kiss and tell stories in the magazines which causes a lot of embarrassment and stress for the players and their marriages. The teams become strained and the fans become more defensive at games which leads to a lot of fights and negative media attention. The story you were part of recently would be seen as a negative against you, regardless of the rare and truly phenomenal skills I’ve seen from you. I was at your try out for the Sounders and your play was unforgettable.”

There was a short silence, but then Cam excused himself quickly. We watched from our spot in the coffee shop across the road as he ran to his car, his phone pressed tightly to his ear.

“What do you think?” I asked Rajesh who was listening via Craig’s phone to what had been going on.

“I think you have a man running to fix the mess he’s made,” he chuckled.

Hoping that he was right, I glanced up as Craig, Elia and Gerardo walked through the door, all three of them smiling smugly.

“Tell us we’re not awesome,” Craig dared as he took the seat beside me and reached for the glass of iced tea that I’d been drinking.

Before he could touch it with his lips, I snatched it back and downed it in one.

“No,” I growled, setting the glass down heavily on the table.

“But you let Ashley do it the other day! I thought you were cured of that weird shit.”

Looking between the two of us, Jason frowned. “What weird shit? If there’s any weird shit involving my daughter, I’ll?—”

“No, it’s nothing like that. Well, mainly,” Craig stuttered through his laughter. “Kip has a phobia of eating or drinking something someone else has touched. You could take a bite of your sandwich and put it down next to his and he won’t eat it.”

Glancing up, I watched as Hayden’s lips twitched as he looked down at a cookie with a bite out of it that was on a plate next to another one—the bitten one being his and the untouched one mine.

Considering he didn’t look surprised, I had to assume he knew of my problem and had done it on purpose.

Leaning back in his chair, Jason grinned widely. “Well then, this is going to make family dinners interesting.”

“But he lets Ashley do it,” Craig reminded them. “Why’s she different?”

“Because he knows where her mouth’s been,” Stan snickered, making both members of the Wilkes family sit up straight in their chairs and glare across the table at me.

“Nah, it’s because he loves her,” Craig argued. “Isn’t that right, Sutherland?”

I didn’t see the point in hiding it, but at the same time I hadn’t told Ashley yet, so it didn’t feel right admitting it right now.

Still, I’d be lying if I said that the fact it was the truth didn’t make me grin like a clown.

Standing up from the table, I put some notes down to pay our bill. “Men, it’s been a blast as always, but I have a beautiful woman?—”

“The love of his life,” Craig interjected.

“Waiting for me at home,” I continued with a smirk. “Thank you all for your help today—you especially, Craig, Elia and Gerardo. Rajesh is going to get in touch with his contact at Seattle Whispers later for phase two.”

Waving goodbye, I’d just reached the door when Craig called out, “Are you going home to make sweet love to Ashley? I mean, you’re past the point of calling it sex, which is clinical and unemotional, right? Making love is?—”

The door had just clicked shut behind me, but I still heard his laughter through it when Jason and Hayden lunged for him.

The thing was, he was right. Sex was a sterile term in comparison to what Ashley and I did together in bed. Or on the couch. Or the bathroom. Or the stairs…

Wherever and whenever, ever since the first time, it’d been more.

And I couldn’t wait to tell her.

Threading my fingers through Ashley’s hair as she flicked the tip of my cock with her tongue, I marveled at how we’d ended up like this.

I’d walked through the door, caught her when she’d jumped at me and wrapped her legs around my waist, quizzing me about what’d happened, and once I’d told her she’d ordered me upstairs to my bedroom.

Which led us to now, with me lying on my back as she kissed all over my torso, and then licked a thin line from my sternum to where she was now sucking lightly on the tip of my shaft.

Fisting a handful of hair gently, I ordered, “Suck it deeper.” When she complied, I followed it with, “And harder.”

Looking up at me, she held my eyes as she took more of my length into her mouth and increased the suction as she fluttered her tongue on the underside at the same time. I had to hold my breath as the sensations hit me at the same time, driving my control to the point of breaking.

Seeing what she was doing to me, she brought her hand into the mix, too, and moved it torturously slowly up and down at the same time as her mouth.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, I pulled her up and off me with a pop, put her astride my lap and then notched my tip at her entrance.

Keeping eye contact, I held her hips and urged her to slowly lower herself down my length.

It was intimate.

It was heaven and hell at the same time.

It was beautiful.

Feeling her thighs tremble, I tightened my grip slightly and supported her through her descent until she’d taken all of me.

Running my hand up her back, I pressed down between her shoulder blades, urging her to lower her face down closer to mine.

When she was where I wanted her, I leaned in so that my mouth was at her ear as I withdrew from her hot, wet tightness, and whispered, “I love you, baby. I don’t care if it’s too soon, too fast, or goes against whatever the rules of the dating game are. I’m making my own up, and they say I get to tell you how I feel, whenever I want.”

Her back shuddered under my hand, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of what I’d told her or the way I was taking her.

Putting her hands down on the mattress either side of my head and bracing her weight on them, she took over the movements up and down, slamming back down to the base of my cock, then swiveling her hips in a tight circle and driving me out of my mind.

“I’m glad you changed the rules, because I love you, too,” she whispered back to me. “Even if you are a giant pain in the a?—”

I didn’t let her finish what she was saying.

Instead, I twisted us so that I was lying over her on the bed and cleared her mind of anything and everything that was going on, apart from what I was doing to her right then.