Page 88

I’m not purposely provoking the stupid ex into anything, but Jake’s family is fascinated by my presence here. They’re all huge fans of the Aces, all Vegas natives, and they want to know every detail about life in the league. His sister is obsessed with Ben Olson, our tight end, and she asks me a million questions about the guy. Scott’s fantasy quarterback last season was none other than Jack Dalton, and he wants to know how Jack’s looking for the upcoming season and whether to draft him again.

Nobody’s paying any attention to the ex, and instead, the spotlight is on me.

It shouldn’t be. It’s not why we’re here.

I try to turn it back to the bride. I try to deflect. I try to bring it back to Vanessa and Jake.

But there’s only so many questions one can ask about a wedding occurring tomorrow, and as it turns out, the groom’s family is much more interested in what my life is like than in talking about the reason why we’re all gathered here.

Thankfully, Vanessa and Jake are on the far end of the table from us having their own conversation while Scott and Jake’s dad grill me on this side. Owen is planted somewhere in the middle, but I can tell he’s listening to their questions and my answers rather than whatever they’re talking about on the other side.

They want to know everything—from teammates to workouts, from game day routines and superstitions to meal plans, from which team I hate the most to which players in the league live up to the rumors we’ve all heard about them.

And when Scott asks what it’s really like being on the field every week, Owen comes back with, “How would he know?”

I nearly hurl a giant fuck you across the table, but Victoria grabs my hand as if she can tell it’s coming, and something about her being right here by my side and knowing where I was about to go with that is the exact comfort I needed.

After lunch, we head up to the room where I attempt to call Harper again.

This time, she answers, and a sense of relief buzzes through my chest the second I see her face.

I hadn’t realized how worried I was about her until I actually see her again.

“Hey ladybug.” I wave at the screen.

“Show me your room,” she demands, and I take her around the suite, ending on the balcony where Victoria is currently reading something on her phone with her feet propped up on the railing. She clicks her phone off quickly—almost guiltily —when I step out there.

“And there’s Ms. Hartley,” I say, and Victoria waves.

“Hi Harts!” Harper says, waving enthusiastically. “Whatcha doing?”

“Oh, just reading a book,” she says nonchalantly, but even in the brightness of the sunshine out here, I can see her cheeks turning pink.

I may have to ask her about that book she was reading…

“What book?” Harper asks for me.

She clears her throat. “Um, one on how to teach reading. How’s it going with Bella?”

“Good. I miss home, though. Bella doesn’t have dinocorns on her walls like I do.” She shows us the white walls in Bella’s room.

We hear someone yell Harper’s name, and she rolls her eyes. “I better go. Bella wants to watch some movie on Disney about emotions and her mom made popcorn.”

“Have fun, ladybug,” I tell her with a chuckle. “I love you.” Just like when Victoria said the words to me last night, it’s the first time I’ve actually said that to Harper.

The words came out as natural as breathing because I do love her. I love her with my whole entire heart in a way that’s very different from the way I love Victoria—inexplicably and unfeasibly also with my whole heart. My love for my daughter is unconditional and nurturing, and it’s based in both responsibility and protection, while what I feel for Victoria is based on a choice I made to be with her as I fell for the person she is. Both are fierce and powerful, and both feel deep and intense.

Both feel like forever.

She freezes for a beat, and she stares at me through the little screen.

My chest tightens as I worry I overstepped.

“I love you, too, Dad,” she says, and then she grins and waves at the screen as she cuts the call.

My heart feels too big for my chest as I slide my phone into my pocket. “That’s the first time we said that,” I tell Victoria softly.

She stands and loops her arms around my waist. “She’s a lucky little girl that she has you.”

“Or maybe I’m the lucky one.” It’s a thought that never occurred to me. We weren’t supposed to be together, and yet here we are, as if we were always meant to be.

The same could be said about Victoria and me, I suppose.

“What were you really reading?” I ask, breaking up the serious moment with a little levity.

“Oh, uh, I…” She draws in a deep breath as if she’s deciding what to say, and then a determined look crosses her face. “I like to read dirty books in my spare time, okay? Mandy and I have our own little book club and we share our favorites with each other.”

“You read smut?”

“Don’t call it that!” She’s getting defensive over her book choices, and it’s hot as fuck.

“Is it, like, porn for women?” I ask.

“No! It’s hot and sexy and it’s not porn!”

“Do you read one-handed?”

“Oh my God!” She covers her eyes with her hands while her face turns tomato-red.

I raise my brows in appreciation as I picture it for myself. “Nice, Hartley. Care to share an excerpt?”

“No! Not with you!”

“Why?” I ask. I’m a little offended. I thought we were closer than that.

“Because you’re making fun of me.”

“That’s not what this is. I think it’s hot as hell that you’re sitting out here all innocently while you’re reading about other people having sex. Is your pussy all hot and wet? Ooh, do you ever think of me while you’re reading?”

“I refuse to answer.”

“I’ll take that as a yes, then. Now read it to me,” I demand.

“No.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “Now you’ve just made it a challenge. Come on, you’re the one who keeps telling me how important reading is. You can read it to me, and I can do whatever the dude is doing in the story to you while you read.”

She pauses and tilts her head for a second as if she’s considering it. “No!” she repeats.

I laugh. “Whoa. These must be really dirty books if you’re refusing.”

She purses her lips at me. “I will consider it. But you are not allowed to make fun of me.”

I hold my hand up to swear. “I would never make fun of you for liking what you like, babe, Promise. Now read me something.”

She sets a hand on her hip to square off against me, but then it seems like maybe she thinks better of it. She blows out a breath and heads inside our room, and she pulls her phone out of her pocket. She turns it on and starts to read. “ Ryker slowly strips her out of her clothes, stopping to kiss each part of her body newly bared to him .”

I pull her shirt over her head and drop my mouth to her collarbone, and then I snap off her bra and kiss her gorgeous tits, and she keeps reading.

“ Once she’s naked and standing before him, he nudges her toward the bed. ‘On all fours,’ he demands .”

I walk with her toward the bed once she’s naked until the backs of her knees hit the mattress. “On all fours,” I demand, and her eyes widen a little. She gets on all fours, and I push her phone under her face so she can continue to read it.

“ He cups her ass with his palm before striking it to the sound of her needy whimper ,” she reads.

I slap her ass, and she lets out a soft moan.

“ He pulls out his cock, heavy with need, and he strokes it in one hand while he runs a fingertip along her entire slit, teasing her puckered hole with his tip .”

I grunt at the description. She wants me to tease her ass? Oh, I’ll tease her ass all fucking day. I do what the book tells me to do, and I’m tempted to give it a try with my cock. It takes everything in my willpower to remind myself we haven’t done that before. We haven’t even talked about whether she’s done that with anybody before, so I can’t exactly just go shoving my way in without warning.

Even though I want to.

“ He slides his cock down into her throbbing vagina —” I do what she says, entering her to a soft cry as she continues reading, “— and that’s when the door opens and his twin brother, Ryder, walks in. ”

I freeze mid-pump. “There’s uh…there’s no brother here.”

“Don’t stop,” she says, grinding her hips back against me. “ Ryder takes one look at the scene in front of him, and he scolds the two of them. ‘Starting without me? I think you’ll both take a punishment for that.’ ”

“What’s the punishment going to be?” I ask as I slam into her.

“Let’s read on and find out. He moves underneath Layla, lining his mouth up with her vagina as his twin brother continues to thrust into her .”

“Two dudes?” I interrupt as I keep pushing into her, but I slow it down into lazy drives. It’s getting harder to concentrate on the task here, but I want her to fall apart when her main character does.

“It’s hot,” she moans as I push all the way into her.

“But there’s not, like, sword-crossing, right?” I ask.

“There’s not sword-crossing. They’re brothers . Although that type of book exists, too,” she admits.

“Keep going. I can’t keep fucking you like this and holding myself off when all I want to do is blow my load.”

“Sexy,” she says dryly. She keeps reading. “ He sucks on her clitoris until she starts to fall apart .” I reach down and rub her clit since I can’t suck on it while I’m fucking her.

“ As Ryder can tell she’s about to tip over the edge, he stops, holding off her orgasm for punishment .”

I stop rubbing her clit, too.

“Oh, God, don’t stop,” she chides me breathlessly.

“You don’t get to come until she does,” I warn.

She clicks off her phone and tosses it to the floor, and then she reaches down to stroke her own clit. “Fuck that.”

I chuckle, and then I pick up the speed, bat her hand out of the way, and get us both to the finish line in mere seconds.

We collapse onto the bed in a fit of laughter, and she rests her head on my chest as we both try to catch our breath.

“One question. Why did it keep saying vagina ?” I ask. “It takes me out of the story. It sounds so clinical.”

She grunts out a laugh. “What would you prefer?”

“Cunt. Pussy. Twat. Snatch. Beaver.”

“Beaver?” she asks.

I nod. “Beaver.”

“I’ve read shifter romance, like wolves and bears and stuff, but never a beaver.”

“There’s a market for everything,” I say, and she dissolves into giggles.

We’re both tired after a late night last night and an early morning flight today followed by the hot sex we just had, and we both fall asleep for a while.

I wake with a jolt when Victoria jumps out of bed.

“Shit! The rehearsal started three minutes ago! We need to get dressed!”

She’s naked, and she grabs her underwear off the floor before rushing over to her suitcase to find appropriate clothes for tonight.

Once we’re dressed and semi-decent, we head toward the rehearsal. The wedding is taking place out on the beach a little before sunset tomorrow, and that’s where the rehearsal is tonight, to be followed by a private dinner at one of the restaurants in the hotel.

“Why are you late?” the bride demands, and then her eyes edge over to me and my rumpled appearance. She puts two and two together. She rolls her eyes and ignores us in favor of the event coordinator.

I sit with Scott, the groom’s brother-in-law, while I clench my jaw and watch my girl walk down the aisle with her ex in practice of their roles tomorrow as maid of honor and best man.

I hate every second of it. I hate him . I hate that she’s holding onto the crook of his arm. She doesn’t look comfortable with him. If anything, she looks miserable, and when her eyes find mine, I give her a little nod to tell her it’s okay.

It’s not okay, and the thought prompts me to my feet.

“Excuse me,” I murmur to Scott, and then I rush inside the hotel to the store I spotted when we checked in.

And then I make the type of purchase I never thought I’d make in my life.