Page 8

CHAPTER SEVEN

MIA

“ A re you sure your dad isn’t going to be home for a while?”

“Yes. It’s Sunday, and golf takes top priority.”

“Mia, I don’t want to fuck this up. With you, with him, with us.”

Jessie pinned me against my living room wall. Well, my dad’s living room.

I was pulsing, throbbing, begging him to take me, to take my virginity and own me. God, he was sexy in all the best ways.

“You won’t. He won’t be back for hours.”

We kissed and kissed. My knees felt weak, my stomach swirled with need, and my heart raced faster than it ever had.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he whispered against my mouth between kisses as I rode his knee, desperate for more friction.

I was soaking through my jeans so badly that I should’ve been embarrassed, but I wasn’t. I didn’t care. I was ready to have sex with him.

“Maybe we should’ve gone back to my place,” he said, his voice shaking with uncertainty as he took in our surroundings.

With my hand around his chin, I pulled his gaze back to mine. “Don’t overthink this. He isn’t coming home.”

“He’ll kill me if he catches me with you.”

His darkened blue eyes trailed down my body. I felt alive, possessed, and so fucking needy.

“He’ll punish you too.”

“If you don’t want me, just say it.”

My brain was in overdrive. Did he want this? He’d kept going on about my dad, but all I wanted was for him to forget and live in this moment with me. To undress me piece by piece. To slide inside me, even though I knew it would hurt. That was what I needed. Nine months of yearning, kissing, meeting up in secret, and going out on dates had led to this right here. It was my nineteenth birthday, and I wanted the best present ever. Him.

“Jessie,” I whimpered as I continued to ride his thigh.

“What do you want, Sweetheart? Me? Because I’ll gladly give you all of me.”

I melted. Right there and then against the outdated wallpaper my dad had insisted was still on trend.

“I want you,” I groaned back. “I want you to take me on my bed.”

He pulled back and looked at me seriously. He knew I’d been holding off, so for me to say this, to be so sure, it said everything.

“A-are you sure?”

We’d not said those three little words … yet. All we’d been doing was sneaking around. Not only was it against our contracts to fraternize like this, but Jessie was also essentially betraying my dad.

Betraying his trust.

Betraying everything he had done for Jessie by being here with me. By wrapping his little finger around mine and following me as I walked him into my bedroom, where I let him lay me down on my bed.

My body language told him everything he needed to know—that I was ready.

I knew he’d slept with a lot of girls at college. He was barely sober and the wild child of the NCAA, and Dad stuck with him through thick and thin. He’d ignored all the warning signs in favor of Jessie’s insane talent.

But I was enraptured by him for a totally different reason.

I was in love with him.

“Take off my clothes,” I whispered in his ear as he climbed on top of me on the bed.

I had to admit, even though we’d never given ourselves an official label since we were so unofficial in everyone else’s eyes, the fact that he was four years older than me and hot as hell did things to my teenage heart.

Every girl wanted him.

Every girl had posters of him on her wall.

But he wanted me.

To an outsider, he was living the American dream even though, underneath, he was broken. But that didn’t matter to me. I knew who he really was. Kind and thoughtful.

All Jessie had told me was that his childhood wasn’t good, but I knew that was just surface level. That he was holding back details for my—and probably his own—sanity.

When he peeled my purple cami top over my head, I was relieved when the breeze from the ceiling fan in my bedroom hit my burning skin. It was one of the hottest Dallas summers on record, but I was on fire from more than that—from the way he looked at me.

“You’re so damn beautiful, Sweetheart,” he cooed as his eyes drank me in.

I wasn’t a girl who’d been blessed with big boobs, but I believed him—that I was beautiful, sexy, desirable.

“Take your shirt off,” I moaned into his mouth, and he smiled against my lips, bracketing me in with his arms. I’d never seen his bare chest, but I knew his body was gorgeous. I could feel it under my touch.

His body tensed at my request. “In a second. This is about you. If I’m going to take something so precious to you, I want you to remember it for all the right reasons. I’m so fucking serious about you, Mia.”

I pulsed again—from my hairline all the way down to my toes. “I’m serious about you too, Jessie.”

I tugged at the waistband of his athletic shorts, wanting more, but he pulled my hand back and pinned it above my head, the other one meeting it soon after.

“No hurry. We’ve got hours, right?”

I nodded and smiled blissfully as we continued to make out on my bed.

“I want to cherish you first.” He looked down at my pale pink bra, a cheeky smirk on his face. “Have you ever been with anyone else, Mia?”

I shook my head quickly. “No. Never.” I was kind of intimidated, knowing he was older than me and had way more experience.

“I’ll take care of you. Just trust me.”

And I did, with my whole damn heart. I knew he would never hurt me. That he would never take this moment lightly.

“It might hurt a little,” he said, kissing his way across my collarbone. His hand wrapped around my back, searching for the clasp on my bra. “But I’ll make it good, I promise.”

“Can we go slow?” I asked. My body started to tremble in all the best ways.

Jessie smiled as, finally, the clasp on my bra popped open, and I arched my back to give him the freedom to take it off, for him to see me for the first time.

“That’s the only way I plan on taking you, Sweetheart,” he rasped. “I can’t wait to see you. I’ve been thinking about this moment since the first day I saw you.”

I whimpered with need, “Then see me.”

“What in the ever-loving hell is going on?!”

Oh no.

No.

No.

NO!

I didn’t understand. Why was Dad home? He always played eighteen holes with his friend Mike Burrows on a Sunday—or at least when he was in town and not in Seattle, coaching the Scorpions.

Jessie flew away from me so fast that he almost hit the ceiling fan in the process. Backing away from me, from where I was still lying on the bed, he shook his head vigorously. “Graham, this isn’t what you think. I’m in … I mean, I care so m ? —”

“Oh, I know what I see here all right. You trying to take advantage of my daughter!”

My dad strode over to Jessie, who was thankfully still fully dressed, and I quickly refastened the clasp on my bra and reached for my cami.

“I-I’m not trying to take advantage of anyone, let alone Mia,” Jessie replied, and his eyes flashed to mine for a split second.

“Don’t look at her. Don’t even think about her ever again. You disgust me, Callaghan. How many chances—how many lifelines—can I throw you? Hmm?! You’re just like your father, aren’t you? I should’ve listened to your former coach and cut you loose while I still could, before you made a play for my daughter.”

My dad took a step back and screwed his nose up. “I swear to God, I can smell booze on your breath.”

“Dad!” I futilely pleaded into the tense space. “Dad, you’ve got it all wrong. He’s my boyfriend.” I sat up on my bed and pulled my knees up to my chest, giving us a label I knew we didn’t officially have. “We’ve been seeing each other for a while.”

What I’d thought would pacify him only seemed to enrage my dad further.

“How long?” he roared.

“A while. Since September maybe.”

My dad’s head whipped back to Jessie, and he grabbed him by the throat. “You, my boy, are finished. You’d better hope there’s a team out there that’s willing to take your sorry ass because I am done with you. Done!”

My sobs were uncontrollable as I scurried off my bed and chased my dad through the living room. He still had Jessie pinned by the throat. I was sure he could fight back, but he didn’t. He let my dad lead him through the house and toward the front door. Away from me, from us.

“I don’t want you anywhere near my daughter, anywhere near my team, and I never want to see you again. Your agent will hear from me directly.”

Dad slammed the door in Jessie’s face and then turned back to me, fire still burning in his eyes.

“You don’t understand, Dad. It’s not like that. He lov ? —”

“He loves no one but himself.” He cut me off. “Boys like him are brought up to survive and take what they can, when they can take it, and I’ll be goddamned if that includes my daughter. Tell me you haven’t been in the car with him after he’s been drinking. Tell me you aren’t that stupid.”

“He wouldn’t do that, Dad. He cares for me.”

Dad pointed behind him and toward the front door. “You keep hanging around him, and you’ll end up like your mother—dead and in some ditch.” He closed his eyes and blew out a long breath. “Have you slept with him?”

Tears started to fall from my eyes, and my voice cracked as I said, “That’s none of your business.”

Enraged, he took a step toward me. “Oh, it really is my business, Mia. You’re both my employees, and you are my daughter, living under my roof. Sneaking him back to your bedroom when you think I’m not around to catch you. So, I’ll ask again. Have you slept with my winger?”

“No!” I croaked out, embarrassment and anger breaking my voice. “No. He was waiting for me to be ready.”

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his beige golf pants and dropped his eyes to the floor as he shook his head. “After everything I did for him.”

I flew back to my bedroom and slammed the door behind me. The smell of Jessie’s spicy cologne was still fresh on my pillow.

I snatched up my phone and typed out a panicked message.

Me

He’s just mad, but I know he’ll come around, Jessie. I know it. I’m so sorry.

I waited and waited for a reply.

Finally, when the ticks turned blue, I prayed for him to start typing a response.

But he didn’t.

He’d chosen to run away, and he had taken my heart with him in the process.