Page 35 of Trick Play (Playing the Field #4)

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

Micah

Now

The Uber pulls away after dropping me off at Zeke’s house, where we agreed to meet so we can ride to the awards banquet together. I can’t say I’m unhappy about the change to my dance card for the evening. His agent, by some miracle, managed to have me moved from Neverending Designs’ RSVP to Zeke’s plus-one. I had no idea he wanted me to come with him, so it was a pleasant surprise.

Zeke opens his front door before I’ve even finished climbing the few steps up the front patio, and it’s no surprise to me when his jaw goes slack. Every step I take has the two long slits on the front of my maxi skirt parting, exposing my smooth legs and heeled ankle boots. My torso is bare beneath the corset vest I’m wearing, cool air kissing my spine through the delicate laces where the corset doesn’t quite close around my back, and the pretty lavender color of it, same as my hair, accents my freshly tanned skin and dark skirt.

“Holy fuck, bunny,” he gasps, breathless, as I stop in front of him. With his body blocking the doorway, he looks severely tall, dark, and handsome in the solid black suit Cierra selected for him to wear. He’s foregone the jacket for now, and his black shirt is only partially buttoned about halfway up, the matching suspenders keeping it from falling open indecently. Still, what I can glimpse of his broad, toned chest dusted with dark hair is a sight to behold.

I pause as he continues to devour me with his gaze, his shoulders moving up and down with heavy breaths as if I’ve somehow stolen the oxygen right from his lungs. He takes me in from head to toe, toe to head, and then again. And again, eyes lingering on anything he finds particularly tantalizing—my hair in his favorite color, the gold bunny charm resting in the hollow of my throat, the deep v of my corset vest, the high slits of my skirt, my heels. He loves all of it, I know he does. I knew the moment Cierra showed me her sketchbook of ideas for my banquet outfit that he would be captivated. My first thought should have been if I liked the designs—though Cierra knows me and knows I love fashion, so I wasn’t surprised that everything was perfect for me—but I’d instead imagined this moment right here, when Zeke would see me, would turn speechless and be reduced to primal desire at the sight of me. Having all of those fantasies play out before my eyes is a heady feeling.

A feeling that grows even stronger when, unexpectedly, Zeke falls to his knees right there in the doorway. The audible thud as he hits the concrete porch makes me wince, but he doesn’t flinch, just looks up at me like I’m the one who put him there. Which, I suppose, is true.

Hands trembling, Zeke runs his palms up my legs between the slits in my skirt, not stopping even when he reaches my upper thigh and the material protests at the stretch. He looks up at me with eyes glazed by need. Heat pools low in my belly. I’d hoped for a strong reaction, but this is more than I could have imagined. He’s on his knees on the dirty ground in a suit that probably cost him thousands of dollars, and he’s looking at me like an idolator come face-to-face with the object of their obsession.

He pulls me close with his hands on my hips beneath the skirt, his nose brushing my waistband as he breathes in deeply. “Fuck, do we have to go? I just want to stay here and worship you all night long.”

The lust pulled taut within me snaps, and I feel a smirk spread across my lips. “Move inside the house, and I just might let you,” I tell him, voice sultry and full of promise.

Dark eyes widening, the professional athlete I get to call my date tonight scrambles backward in a graceless mess of legs and arms until he comes to a stop in the foyer of the house, resuming his position on his knees, ass to heels, suit unkempt. He pants like he’s just run a ninety-nine-yard touchdown.

I sway my hips as I enter the house and close the door behind me, placing my back against it for support because my knees are trembling so hard I might tumble in my heels without assistance. All these years with him, and I still have the same reaction to his affection as the first time I met him. He shouldn’t be here, with me. He and I don’t run in the same circles; we’re in two entirely different social classes. He should be an impossible dream, yet I’ve been lucky to call him a friend, at one time something more, and the person who knows me the most intimately out of the entire world.

“You’re killing me,” he croaks as the distance between us begins to feel like too much. His hand falls to his crotch, palming the prominent bulge made obvious by the perfectly tailored cut of his trousers. “You look so sexy. I need to touch you.”

Raising one booted foot, I place my heel on the notch of his shoulder—the suit be damned at this point. The pieces of my skirt fall open, my entire leg now exposed. “Then come here.”

He obeys the command just as I knew he would. When he rises on his knees and off his heels, my leg extends higher, and as he knee-walks closer, I have to bend until my knee practically meets my chest. Thank God I’m flexible. “You’re so fucking delicious,” he says in a low voice, eyes going dark, his entire presence shifting from submissive to dominant in an instant. “I could just eat you up.”

And then, before I can manage a coherent response, Zeke dives beneath my skirt and pulls my cock through the fly of my boxer briefs. I’m already firm from our heated words and looks, but his touch immediately has me as hard as the diamonds in the Super Bowl ring adorning the hand he has on me. His calloused palm strokes me, nice and firm—just the way I know he likes it and the way I’ve come to crave since being with him.

From under my skirt, he lets out a guttural groan and, in a twist I would have never seen coming, engulfs my cock in the tight, wet heat of his mouth.

“Zeke!” I gasp in surprise and pleasure, hands instinctively diving inside my skirt to bury my fingers in his hair. I don’t dare try to force his movements, though, not when I know his history.

Once, in the after moments of sex when we have our bare-all conversations, Zeke told me about the previous times he’d tried giving blow jobs. His gag reflex has always been sensitive—so much so that now he even gags when watching someone else brush their own tongue—but after actually vomiting on a bed partner’s dick—two different times—he gave up going down on partners. I’ve never pushed him to put his mouth on me; I don’t expect it just because I give it. I enjoy blowing him, and I enjoy everything he gives me in return, no matter what it is.

I throw my head back when he hollows his cheeks and sucks on me. “Nngh. God, Zeke.” The desperate whine in my voice has me dragging out the E in his name.

But then he gags harshly, drawing off my cock with a quick, jerky movement, and my pleasure no longer matters. I’ve enjoyed having a hot guy choke on my dick in the past, but knowing how uncomfortable it is for him makes it completely unappealing to me now.

“Fuck, Zeke, don’t—” I tug his hair to keep him from trying again. “It’s okay. You don’t have to.”

He pushes forward, and when I feel his mouth on me again, it’s only to kiss and suck up and down my shaft.

“Mm, yeah, baby. Just like that,” I encourage as the pleasure returns now that neither of us is doing something we find uncomfortable.

Zeke hums an encouragement before yanking my underwear down my thighs, palming beneath my ass cheeks, lifting and tilting my hips as his mouth travels down my balls, over my taint, and to my hole, where he devours me completely. Even with a heel, my leg that was still on the floor can’t reach any longer due to him raising me up, so I bend it to mirror my other on his shoulder. I leave one hand in his hair, more than willing to press his face harder into me now that I know it won’t cause him discomfort, and grip my now-neglected cock. One stroke over the precome and down the straining shaft is all it takes for me to lose my mind with need.

I writhe, moaning loud and unabashed, and ride his face as everything rushes toward an embarrassingly quick release. “Zeke, I—I’m gonna— Fuck, you’re gonna make me come!”

Through the haze of bliss, I have a brief flash of concern for our clothes, but Zeke is one step ahead. He presses a finger inside to brush my prostate as his lips close around the very tip of my cock, and I erupt. Every muscle tenses until my legs are shaking. Wave after wave crashes over me until I feel like I can’t breathe—overwhelmed, spent, ready to surrender. My scream echoes through Zeke’s ridiculously enormous house.

Coming down from the high, I’m trembling too much to remain upright, so I drop onto Zeke’s lap with my feet falling to either side of him. “Holy shit,” I whisper, trying to catch my breath and still my chattering teeth—not from cold but the intensity of it all.

We didn’t even make it past the front door.

Zeke kisses me, halting the quiver of my jaw, and I’ve only just reached for his belt when a voice cuts through the otherwise silent house.

“Are you two done? We’re going to be late.”

“What the fuck,” I gasp and jerk away from Zeke’s mouth. Over his shoulder, I find Tahegin and Hendrix peeking around the corner to the living room, Gin with a shit-eating grin, and even Rix appears amused. “Zeke,” I murmur lowly, “you didn’t think to mention our friends were just in the other room?”

“I forgot,” he confesses unapologetically, voice sounding wrecked. He’s still hard and clearly unfazed by our audience.

Who just heard me scream as I came! Fucking hell.

“Y’all wanna get up so we can go?” Tahegin asks, chuckling as he and Rix step further into the foyer. He’s dressed in a gorgeous blue suit that matches the color of his eyes and stands out against his bronze skin. Beside him, Hendrix is wearing a black suit with a loosened tie and matching handkerchief in the same shade of blue as his boyfriend’s outfit.

“We’ll be back,” Zeke mutters distractedly as he stands with me still in his arms. My legs automatically lock around his waist, and he easily carries me, erection rubbing against my belly, to his bedroom.

Wherein I proceed to show him my thanks for the amazing orgasm he gave me.

After, he cleans up in the bathroom, brushing his teeth and rinsing his mouth with his special mouthwash his doctor prescribes. I dig around his dresser for an old black T-shirt, then join him in the bathroom to rub away the scuffs on his suit.

“Woah,” he says as the marks disappear.

I rub at his scuffed pant legs from where he knelt on his knees for me as I explain. “For some reason, rubbing one black material against another black one will make these white scuffs fade. Works for deodorant marks, too.”

“Huh. What would I do without you, bunny?” It’s a rhetorical question accompanied by an easygoing grin and peck to my lips before he exits the bathroom, but I find myself pondering the answer for all the wrong reasons.

? ? ?

“Shit. There’s David,” I hiss, ducking behind Zeke and Hendrix—the latter of whom had apparently spilled all the tea about my boss to Tahegin and Zeke. In the limo on the way here, I’d told them about David’s poor reaction to the news that I wouldn’t be accompanying him to the banquet.

The morning corporate informed David of the change, I was called into his office and made aware of corporate’s decision to send Cierra in my place. They’d conveniently left out the part about me still attending as an NFL player’s plus-one, so I’d sat there and nodded along with David’s bitching and moaning about how much he wished it could be me going. I wasn’t sure of the best way to tell him about being Zeke’s date, so I didn’t say anything, and now I’m dreading the moment David spots me here with Zeke.

My friends do their best to shield me from David’s view during the mingling hour—in which I’m forced to listen to several schmoozers inquire about Zeke’s recent shift from playboy to responsible bachelor—and when I catch a glimpse of Benjamin Santiago surrounded by paparazzi and rocking an Armani suit, I have Hendrix working double duty. He uses his body to cover me from David and Ben—the latter because if Zeke realizes we know each other, he’ll wonder why .

The media storm is more than I’d expect for such an unrecognized group being awarded, but they mostly seem focused on the celebrities. More than once, I find myself smiling for photo ops with Zeke, and I can’t say I don’t enjoy hanging off his arm like some kind of trophy wife.

During the awards announcements, as we’re all sitting facing the stage, I accidentally lock eyes with my bosses on two opposite sides of the room. Ben simply smiles and raises a curious eyebrow at the NFL player beside me, but David does a full, dramatic double take before glaring daggers at Zeke for the remainder of the awards announcements.

After, I avoid David at all costs as we make the rounds again, congratulating all those who won an award. Cierra and I pass each other near the bathroom, and we chat for a minute about who’s wearing what, how annoying our boss has been, and how nervous she was when going onstage to accept the award on behalf of our company for winning best graphics of the four divisions. We part with well-wishes for the weekend, and she returns to the reception hall while I continue to the bathroom.

There isn’t an attendant inside, thank God, so I manage the awkward piss around my long skirt at the urinal without embarrassing myself in front of anyone. It’s only as I’m drying my hands that the door opens.

I turn to toss my paper towel in the trash and come face-to-face with David.

Great.

Trying for nonchalance, I offer him a small smile and a finger wave. “Hey. Enjoying the banquet?”

“You’re here with that football player.” His tone is flat, just like the stare he gives me. His eyes don’t even roam my body the way I’ve come to expect and endure.

Though he doesn’t phrase it as a question, I feel the need to answer. “I am.”

David takes a step closer, and for the first time ever, his presence actually comes across as threatening. I take in his brown eyes, the smile lines in their corners, and average build, wondering why something seems different this time. Maybe it’s his lack of emotion, such a drastic change from his usual bashful fumbling and blushing at anyone’s attention. Either way, I find myself wishing he wasn’t standing between me and the exit.

I try to sidestep him. “Excuse me, I need to?—”

“I don’t know what you did,” he hisses, cutting off my attempt to leave. An emotion finally appears on his face, but it’s all anger and balled fists at his sides. “I don’t know who you smiled and blinked prettily at to get your way, but if you didn’t want to come with me tonight, you could have just said something instead of getting corporate involved. Do you know how embarrassing it was to get a call saying the candidate I chose had been denied? I looked like an incompetent idiot.”

“David, I—I had no idea,” I tell him, genuinely shocked. He never said anything about feeling embarrassed when he was ranting and raving in his office. “I’m so sorry. There was no intention?—”

“Are you fucking him?”

I recoil in shock, his words hitting me like a physical slap. “That isn’t?—”

“Of course you’re fucking him.” He lets out a bitter bark of laughter and runs a frantic hand through his hair as if this is devastating news to him. “I’ve seen you on his social media pages. Kissing all the time. Why, Micah? He’s a player—no matter what he’s trying to make himself out to be now. You’re just another notch on his bedpost. You aren’t special to him. Not . . .” He swallows thickly. “Not how you are to me.”

Shaking my head, I hold my hand up between us. “David, this is not appropriate. You’re my boss.”

“But I could be more,” he blurts hopefully.

My response is firm and immediate. “No.”

He scowls. “I know I don’t have a six-pack, Micah, but I promise I’m the better choice. Dumb jocks like him don’t understand guys like you and me. We’re intelligent, artistic, and faithful. How can you want someone who treats you as if you’re expendable? I would never kiss someone else if you were mine?—”

“Stop. This is . . . You can’t do this, David. I have no interest in you. I never have. I’m sorry if I did something to make you think this is okay, but it isn’t. You need to let this go.” I try to move around him again.

“Just let me—” He grabs my arm, gently. Even upset, he’s not the kind of guy to get rough, and while that’s a respectable quality, it doesn’t mean he has permission to lay hands on me. Just like the clients at Mischief never have permission to touch me. Sometimes they still do. Security handles it, but it’s that moment, those few seconds, when time slows and my skin crawls from an unwanted touch, that’s when I feel powerless.

“Don’t touch me!” I reflexively exclaim a little too loudly for the small tiled bathroom, but before I can apologize, the door slams open.

Zeke enters like an explosion, shouting, “Hey!” to get David’s attention. Startled twice, David drops my arm and turns . . . to meet Zeke’s fist.

The punch lands square on David’s cheek, and he crumbles immediately.

“Oh my God!” Crouching, I check on David at the same time I get on Zeke’s ass. “Zeke, what the fuck? You can’t just punch people!”

“He had his dirty hands all over you,” he defends, shaking out his hand.

“His hand was on my arm. You assaulted him,” I snap in return. Behind Zeke, Tahegin and Hendrix peer curiously inside the room. “He could press charges.”

Zeke huffs. “He assaulted you, Micah. You didn’t want him to touch you, and you told him so. He’d be a fool to press charges on me when he was trying to creep on his employee.”

I shoot him a glare that says we’ll talk about this later and resume checking on my boss. “David, you okay?”

“Just go,” he mutters. He’s still on the floor, holding his injured cheek, but it appears as if all the argument has drained from him. He sits resigned, eyes downcast, waiting for us to leave. “Get out. Go. Don’t pretend like you care now.”

Before tonight, I probably would have stayed to talk things out, but it feels weird knowing he’s had this delusion that we had a chance together. Right now, I just want out of this bathroom, and I don’t want to be cornered and touched without permission again.

Standing, I wordlessly brush past Zeke and our friends. If I take a left out of the bathroom, I’ll end up right back at the reception hall, which sounds like a terrible option, so I turn right, going deeper into the building where no one else is.

It doesn’t take long to realize I’m being followed, and I easily recognize the familiar, persistent footsteps. The hallway opens into a small abandoned atrium of some kind, so I slow to let him catch up before rounding on him. We’re six feet apart, but somehow, he feels both too close and too far away. His black suit is rumpled, his hair mussed, and his right hand flexes at his side, knuckles slightly swollen.

“What the fuck, Zeke?” I demand again. His shoulders and jaw are already steeled for an argument, and if he’s surprised by my outburst, he doesn’t show it. “Not only was that uncalled for, but it could jeopardize your new reputation if he blabs to the media that you punched him out in the bathroom at a banquet where he won an award. God, did you even think ?”

His dark eyes burn hot and furious, teeth flashing as he matches my hostile energy. “I did think! I stood there listening to him call me an idiot football player and a playboy who doesn’t respect you, and that pissed me the fuck off because it isn’t true, but I thought, ‘Micah knows how to handle himself. He doesn’t need me.’ Then you told him ‘no’ repeatedly, and he still touched you. So, yeah, okay, the dumb jock got mad and lashed out with his fists. Whatever. Blame it all on me if that makes you feel better about having a shitty, creepy boss. But I won’t apologize. I won’t ever feel sorry for protecting you.” Frustration has him gesturing wildly with his hands—pointing at himself, the ground, a sarcastic shrug, pointing at himself again. He’s worked up, voice raised loud enough to echo off the tile floor of the empty room. I’ve never seen him like this, not even when his neighbors call the cops for every little petty thing that bothers them.

“I’m not worth your reputation,” I insist because he has to know that. He’s spent months on his best behavior, and the Allied Players Association is nearly ready to be legitimized. I can’t let him jeopardize his image for someone as insignificant as me.

“No, you’re not,” he fires back, taking two steps closer. “You’re worth so much more. You’re . . . God, Micah, you’re worth everything. You are everything. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

No, no, no. We can’t go there. We can’t do that. I have to change the conversation back to David. Have to stop him from saying the words. “David could be telling everyone right now how you assaulted him?—”

“God damnit, Micah!” he cuts me off with a roar that reverberates throughout the empty room. “When are we going to talk about it?”

I hug my arms across my belly as it fills with dread. The room suddenly feels too bright. I feel too visible, despite the only lighting being small wall sconces spaciously placed throughout the room. “We are talking about it,” I say weakly, knowing that isn’t what he means. “David?—”

“Fuck David. I’m talking about us .” Four steps and he closes the distance between us, his hand cupping my cheek, fingers tangling in my hair in that familiar way that only he can achieve. It’s more instinctive than breathing. Zeke lowers his head, our mouths inches apart, and whispers, “I’m talking about the fact you won’t let me love you.”

I burst into tears.

He said it. After all this time, our breakup, our stupid hookup arrangement, that night I refused to let him tell me those three words—now he’s said it. There’s no taking it back. No pretending neither of us knew the truth. It’s out there now.

We have to face it.

“I’m in love with you, Micah,” he whispers, thumbing away my tears even as more cascade. “I don’t know why you don’t want me to say it. I don’t know why you don’t want me to love you, but I fucking do, okay? I have for a long time, and . . . and I think you love me, too.”

“Zeke,” I sob, pleading, wanting him to stop, wanting him to never stop.

“You know me better than anyone in the entire world, bunny. You’re my best friend, my lover, my companion, my comfort. I want to spend my nights with you. My days by your side. I want to watch you dance in a nightclub and take you home after. I want to buy you pretty lacy things and worship your body when you wear them for me. I want to wake up to you sprawled across my chest, your hair tickling me in the most inconvenient places. I want to shout to the world that I love you. I’ll do anything, I swear. Is it the kissing thing? I’ll give it up. I’ll figure something else out. Just please, Micah. Let me love you.”

It’s a beautiful, heartfelt, gut-wrenching speech, but I can barely hear it over the yelling in my head reminding me that I’m a lying liar who lies, lies, lies. I shut my eyes so tight that more tears squeeze free, because it hurts deep in my chest to see the raw emotion on his face. The face I keep lying to, damn it.

He presses his mouth to mine in a desperate, wet, salty kiss. “Tell me you love me,” he begs against my lips. “Tell me I’m not crazy. This is real. We’re real. We’re in love. We?—”

“I can’t,” I gasp and back away. My heart fractures more and more with every inch I put between us, but I keep going, keep shaking my head and licking my lips that taste like him. “We can’t. You can’t. I— You— Why are you doing this? We were fine. Things were fine. We were . . . It was . . .”

“You can’t even say it because you know deep down it’s bullshit.” He gives me a fierce stare, jaw tight, fists clenched at his side. “We were flag football trying to play a Super Bowl. It was never going to work, and we were fools to continue running in circles. I want to move forward with you. I want a first and ten with you, and I want it again and again and again.” There he goes, saying cheesy, romantic things like that as if we’re in some gay Hallmark movie.

He’s right, though. He’s so goddamn right, and I’m so stupid for fucking this up for so long. I just . . . I wanted him for as long as I could have him because I know that now, confronted with this, I’m going to lose him. He won’t keep playing this game once he finds out there’s no finish line.

“There’s s-something you don’t kn-know,” I blubber around heaving, crying gasps for air, body racked with hiccups that I can’t stifle. I wipe my tears away with the heels of my hands, but more take their place within seconds. A harsh sniff of my nose has snot being pulled back inside, and I can’t imagine how much of a mess I must look, makeup running everywhere.

And Zeke, damn him, stares at me like he wants nothing more than to hold me close and whisper how much he loves me, mess and all. “Tell me. We’ll make it work, whatever it is. I promise.”

“N-no,” I gasp-hiccup wetly. “I can’t t-tell you because then I’ll l-lose you for-for good.” I’m in hysterics, like a child that can’t figure out how to control their emotions, but I can’t fucking stop. “If I don’t tell you, at-at least you’ll still l-love me, even if you don’t wa-want to be with me. But if I tell you, you might h-hate me.”

“Micah, bunny, baby,” he whispers gently, stepping forward to hold my face, hunching down so I can see the concern etched across his. “Love, you have to calm down. You’re going to make yourself sick.”

I sob harder at his tender care, arms hugging my middle.

“Sh, sh, sh.” He wraps me in a tight embrace and presses my snotty face into his suit-clad chest. “Oh, Micah. Sh, sh. It’s okay. I promise, it’s all right. I could never hate you, bunny. Never.”

“I can’t tell you,” I cry into his chest, and I’ll be embarrassed about the lack of restraint later. God, why can’t I pull myself together? I don’t want to lose him. I can’t imagine not having him in my life, even if, after all this, we’re only acquaintances.

“Fuck. Okay. Just stop crying, please. We’ll— We’ll go back to how it was, okay? We’ll pretend this didn’t happen. I’ve had a few drinks, so maybe I won’t even remember this in the morning.” He’s scrambling, grasping at straws, and I all too readily accept the lifeline.

I look up at him, eyes wide and too naive for my own good, nodding. “Okay. Yes. Can we go home? Please? Take me home, Zeke.”