Cross-Checked Page 8

  He stared back at me, direct, silent.

  I lifted up the elastic and absorbed the heat burning from him as I pulled back his boxers. His cock sprang upward, long and thick and roped with bulging veins. At the top, coming from the slit, sat a silver hoop with a small ball at its center. My eyes widened and my mouth salivated. He’d been telling the truth, he really was deliciously bad.

  “Believe me now?” he asked in a low, throaty voice.

  “It’s bigger than I thought it would be.”

  He gave a strained huff. “What, you thought I’d have a small dick?”

  “No.” I shook my head and my hair fell farther forward. “I knew you’d have a big dick, you’ve got size thirteen feet.”

  His brow creased. “How do you—”

  “Your shoes.” I nodded to his discarded shoes. I’d known well before five minutes ago that he had size thirteen feet. That was the sort of info on player stat pages in People. “I mean the ring. It’s bigger than I thought it would be.”

  “No point having it if you can’t feel it, honey.” He tried to pull his arms down again and the headboard rattled. “Shit.” He glanced at his trapped wrists. “You sure you don’t want me to just take it from here? Come on, get rid of these knots and I’ll give you what you need, ’cause you look kind of like you’re in shock.”

  “I’m not in shock.” I looked up at him. “I’m just planning what to do with you. You and your ring.”

  His head dropped back and his cock twitched. I couldn’t wait another second, I reached for it. Wrapped my hand around the shaft, at the base like I’d said I would on the phone and how I’d wanted to during the interview. I gave it a squeeze. A low, tortured groan erupted from his throat and I absorbed the beautiful texture of his skin. Velvet softness on hard steel. The veins pulsated as I clasped him harder and began to slide upward.

  “Ah, I knew you’d feel sweet touching me, Carly, but jeez, that little hand of yours is…” He sucked in a breath. “Fucking awesome.”

  I slid up to the head—heart-shaped, swollen and the color of a ripe plum. A drip of moisture glistened in the slit, right next to the ring. I touched the fluid with the index finger of my other hand and swirled it around his hot, smooth flesh, being careful not to touch the piercing.

  His hips arched off the bed and the headboard banged against the wall much louder than before.

  “Carly, you’re fucking torturing me,” he snarled through gritted teeth.

  “I hadn’t even started yet,” I whispered as I released him.

  I clambered between his thighs, pushing at them as I went so I could sit between his spread legs. “Open up for me.”

  He parted his legs and I tipped forward. Just looking at his cock jutting toward me, angry and demanding, was nearly enough to make me come. My clit was pounding against the seam of my jeans and my pussy ached with need. But this wasn’t about me, not tonight. This was all about Brick and his desire for me growing bigger, faster, more intense than anything he’d ever known before.

  “You said you’d come if I tickled your piercing with my tongue,” I said quietly, feeling utterly sensual and powerful.

  “Hell, yeah, that’s a distinct possibility, but why don’t you strip off those wickedly tight jeans of yours and go for a ride instead, eh?”

  “Who’s tied to the bed?” I asked, running my finger up the inside of his thigh and licking my lips. “And who’s calling the shots?” I cupped my palm and let his balls sit in the center. He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut as I rolled them—tight balls in a loose-skinned sac. They felt so ardently male and virile I had to stop myself ducking down and sucking them into my mouth the way he’d sucked my breasts into his. “You’re tied up and I am calling the shots,” I murmured, leaning forward so my mouth hovered over the tip of his cock. “And I want to tickle your jewelry with my tongue until you come. Until you come down my throat.” I couldn’t help the carnal smile that spread across my face.

  “Ah fuck. That’s not right, Carly.” He looked at me, his gaze settling on my glossed mouth an inch from his cock. “I should be inside you the first time tonight. I want—”

  “You don’t know what you want…yet.” I swiped my tongue over the bead of pre-cum welling in his slit. Let the small pearl of fluid sit on the tip before I pulled it into my mouth. He watched me with glazed eyes and a tense jaw.

  I stuck out my tongue again and tickled the tip over the ring. His whole body jerked. “Ah fuck.”

  I wrapped a hand around his shaft, holding his cock exactly where I wanted, and began to milk it up and down. His thighs trembled, his breath sucked in. I swiped my tongue back over the ring, more forcefully this time, and tasted his hot, male, salty flavor on the cool metal.

  “Oh fuck, you’re gonna get it in a minute,” he groaned as I started up a gentle tickling rotation and pumped him harder, faster. “Let’s just get to the main event, hop the hell on, will you?”

  I ignored him as sparks of desire raced around my body. My breaths were nearly as rapid as his. I opened my mouth wide and took him in so my lips sat just past his glans. The ring slid onto my tongue, foreign but so perfect in its smooth hardness. Already I couldn’t imagine it not being there. It was so part of him.

  The headboard jerked against the wall as I sank down, replacing my hand with my mouth. The whole bed shivered and his body tensed to granite. Determined to take the full length of him, I drew air through my nose until he filled my throat. I sucked gently, way down low on my tongue. A gentle rhythmic suction that shifted the ring with each tiny gulping action I made.

  “Oh god,” he moaned. “You’re too damn good at that. You better be real fucking careful.”

  His voice was strained and new drips of pre-cum emerged—he was a whisper from coming. I was about ready to combust too. I’d dreamed of this, fantasized about giving him pleasure this way. And oh my god, the reality was so much hotter, so much more erotic and it went so much deeper than physical pleasure. We were connecting—mind, body and spirit.

  I drew back, letting his shaft slide along the wide roll of my tongue as my fingers circled his girth, pumping faster, harder. When just the tip of his cock sat in my mouth, I snagged the ring and tugged gently with my teeth. The reaction was dramatic. His whole body trembled and his cock twitched as if trying to get away from me but at the same time jerking back for more.

  Cupping his balls, I sank way down low again. Felt his testicles retract and his cock harden even further in my mouth as my lips stretched taut around his base.

  “Sweet Jesus, that’s so fucking…” he groaned.

  He was there.

  A strangled moan filled the room as pulsing hot jets spurted down my throat. I carried on sucking and stroking, milking and swirling. He tasted divine pouring over my tongue and I swallowed over and over, letting the ring stroke my palate. I’d just made Brick come. He’d had other ideas on how he wanted this to go, but I’d taken control. A tiny orgasm hit me. No stimulation other than jeans and my sweet power over him had created a small but delicious climactic tremor that enveloped me like a sugary cloud of dizziness. I shuddered, let a small moan rumble around his cock and shut my eyes.

  “Ah jeez, give me fucking strength,” Brick panted as his cock gave one final pulsation and stilled.

  I let him slide from my mouth and pushed up to my knees. His face was red with heat and my lipstick. His eyes closed, the silk scarves thin and tight and his fingers clenched.

  “You okay?” I asked, looking at the frown lines plowed across his forehead.

  “Mm.”

  I moved alongside him. He kept perfectly still as I pressed my mouth to his. “Did you enjoy doing it my way?”

  “What do you think?” he murmured. It was as if he was in a daze.

  “I think it did you good to let someone else call the shots.” I traced my finger over the center of his chest, curled it through the fuzz of chest hairs on his sternum and circled his nipple.

  “Good, yeah,” he spoke sl
owly. “It was really fucking good, honey. Jeez, you nearly blew my mind with all the sucking at the base of your throat as I was spurting. Where the hell did you learn that?” He opened his eyes and looked directly at me.

  “I didn’t learn it anywhere,” I said as I dropped a kiss onto the wisps of hair in his exposed armpit. I breathed in the scent of fresh sweat and looked back up into his eyes. “It just felt the right thing to do with that ring sitting on my tongue.”

  “Well, I can promise you, I’ve never had such a fucking awesome blowjob, honey.”

  A satisfied smile tugged my lips. “Glad you approve.”

  “I more than approve, that was enough to make a guy fall in love.” His mouth tilted in a contented smile and his eyes shut.

  Oh my god, he’d used the “L” word. A bubble of emotion swelled in my throat but I fought it down. It didn’t mean anything. I had just given him a “fucking awesome blowjob”. His feelings were confused. I had to remember that and not get carried away with thinking it was more for him.

  “You gonna untie me now?” he asked sleepily.

  “Yeah, in a minute. I’m just going to use the bathroom.”

  He dragged in a deep breath as a final shudder claimed his body. “Don’t be long, I’ll be ready to go again in ten minutes and then it’s your turn with the scarves. I’m gonna show you what I can do with my tongue.”

  “I may have a quick shower.” Oh god. The thought of what he’d be able to do with that tongue was almost enough to make me strip naked and sit on his face.

  “So untie me before.”

  “I will, in a minute.” I had to get off the bed before my urges took over.

  He sighed and shut his eyes as though too beat to argue.

  I padded to the bathroom. Shut the door, ran the shower and splashed water on my face. I sat on the edge of the bath and counted to sixty slowly, in my head, ten times.

  Quietly I tiptoed into the room, urges in check. I stopped and stared at him lying on the bed. Still naked with his arms tied. His chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. His cock was half hard and lay against his nest of pubic hair, the ring winking naughtily at me through the semidarkness. I moved silently over to him, my heart full of wonder at how one man could be so beautiful, and congratulated myself on branding him so prettily with my lipstick.

  I untied one wrist and laid his hand gently on the pillow by his head. I was sure moving his whole shoulder would wake him, and I didn’t want to do that.

  I stooped for my shoes. He muttered something and moved his head. I couldn’t be sure but I thought he said, “Carly.”

  Shoes in hand, back bent, I stilled and studied his face. His lashes remained low, shadowing his cheek, his red-smeared lips parted as his jaw relaxed again.

  Within a minute his breathing had returned to the deep, satisfied languor of sleep. I stood, picked up my purse and silently left the room.

  Brick would wake still wanting me, still hot for me. Covered in my kisses, with one wrist harnessed, he’d remember exactly what had happened. But now—now he would know just how damn good I was and exactly how I could blow his mind and other parts of his anatomy. It had been touch and go at one point but luckily my plan for tonight had gone like clockwork. Or should that be cockwork?

  Chapter Six

  I spent the next day lounging in my second-floor hotel room. I didn’t know what time Brick was heading off for his flight and I couldn’t risk running into him. I needed him hanging on to the memory of last night.

  I rang for room service and watched old movies. But I couldn’t concentrate; my head was a swirl of erotic images from the evening before that kept playing over and over. I called Mom and told her I’d pick her up some Dean & DeLuca spices, her favorite. My coach, Sheila, called and sighed when I said I wasn’t riding at all for the next couple of days. “Only three months ’til it’s hard slog training again,” she said with a sternness in her voice I recognized only too well.

  After a piping-hot bath I fell asleep early then rose fresh for the long train ride down the East Coast.

  Watching the blur of houses and place names soon sent me into a bored trance. I knew I should fly, really I should—a couple of hours and I’d be home. Because this was a mammoth train ride by anyone’s standards. Other people managed to climb those airplane steps, sit on those small seats and smile at the flight attendant. So why couldn’t I? I could do things most people couldn’t, but flying really stumped me. When I’d traveled to Beijing to the Olympics I’d had a tranquilizer prescribed and cleared by the official Olympic body. If I could have cruised there I would have. As it happened, I didn’t remember a thing. Dad propped me up in my sleepy, dazed state as I climbed aboard and then helped me off when we eventually arrived in China.

  But I didn’t really mind the train. Sheila and my agent had gotten used to my phobia when planning travel to competitions and events. Often Sheila would fly with my bike and I would take the train with either Mom or Dad.

  But today I was alone. I ate fruit then went for chocolate. Picked at a dry, flavorless hot dog and drank Mountain Dew. I finished the Booker Prize novel I was reading and reached for a discarded New York Standard on the opposite seat. I flicked through, read an article about a new exhibit at The Metropolitan and a piece on Madonna who was reading her latest kids’ book at Barnes and Noble. I was just about to toss the paper aside when I spotted a small picture of Brick on the third to last page. Next to him was a photo of me. It was the one from the Olympics and I stood holding flowers with my gold medal around my neck, beaming from ear to ear.

  “Athletic Romance,” the headline read. My skin prickled as a wave of heat rose from my chest, up my neck and onto my cheeks.

  Oh my god!

  Suddenly I couldn’t focus. I rubbed my knuckles into my sockets then tossed back a mouthful of Mountain Dew.

  With apprehension ballooning, I skimmed through the two-paragraph article beneath. It seemed someone at the Ray Lenon studio had squealed to the press about Brick’s microphone slip-up. Although his shocking words obviously weren’t repeated in the paper, they implied that we couldn’t keep our hands off each other and left abruptly, together, for a night of steamy “athletic” sex back at The Waldorf.

  I folded the paper into my bag and glanced nervously at the other passengers on the train. Everyone was absorbed in books or iPods or fast asleep. My heart rate settled slightly. At least my parents wouldn’t see it, since it was a New York paper. But so many other people would, and that was how gossip started. I didn’t want gossip about “us” until we were established. Until I’d made Brick mine. Because if I failed to do that and everyone found out, I didn’t know how I would step out of the house again.

  Sighing I stared at the passing landscape. There was nothing I could do about it now but hope the hotel bellboy didn’t add his gossip to the mix. Because that would be mortifying, Brick sucking on my breasts in an elevator was not appropriate behavior even if it had been enormous fun.

  Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, I arrived in Orlando. Stepped out with my bags and let the humidity wrap around me like an old friend.

  Home.

  My cab to Richmond Hill took twenty minutes and before I knew it I was showered and wearing my ratty old t-shirt. With fresh pasta in one hand, wine in the other, I sat and waited for the hockey game to start—Vipers versus Gold Diggers. I’d managed to push the newspaper article from my mind and was looking forward to an exciting playoff game.

  I’d just finished my pasta when the Vipers shot from the tunnel onto the ice. I took a gulp of wine as number eight flew out with his stick held high. Brick. The crowd erupted. His helmet was off and the commentator jabbered excitedly about the points he’d scored over the season so far.

  As I watched him move over the ice with speed and grace, my heart fluttered. A curl of delicious sensation shimmied up my spine and settled in my scalp. He skated up to the coach, spoke briefly then slammed on his helmet, sliced back to the center circle a
nd banged his stick down, hard.

  My eyes roamed his body as the camera panned over him in a close-up. Thick pads protected his legs and shoulders, making him look even more colossal than I knew he was. His hands were hidden behind dense gloves. I looked at his groin, the shape of a cup could just be made out. I licked my lips and swallowed. I knew what lay beneath that cup. I knew what his cock looked like, tasted like. I knew about the silver ring through the end. The ring that he loved to have tickled and tugged, sucked and swallowed down my throat.

  A breath shivered through my chest at the delicious memory.

  No one else in the arena knew about the ring. Well, apart from his teammates if he showered with them in the locker room. But Brick’s cock and I were on more than glancing terms, we were intimate, and hopefully after the ball on Friday, we’d get considerably more intimate. I was so looking forward to it.

  The camera swung around a couple of the other players—Ramrod, Wolf, Phoenix—and then panned up to the press booth and across to the players’ wives, kids and girlfriends.

  Suddenly my world stopped.

  I felt as though I’d been punched in the stomach. My breathing froze and a wrench of nausea fisted my guts.

  Mae French.

  What the hell was she doing there, looking all glamorous in a soft pink hat and a pristine cream coat? Her bee-stung lips smiled at something Phoenix’s wife said and her false lashes fluttered toward the camera.

  I stood and paced to the window. Rubbed the heels of my hands into my eyes, which stung with the image I’d just seen. That should be me up there with the other players’ wives and girlfriends.

  Not her.

  I’d only been out of touch for a couple of days and she’d walked back into his life. How the hell had she done it? I thought they were over, finito.

  The sick feeling doubled.

  Had my plan backfired? Had I left him wanting a woman, any woman, and he’d reached out for her? Maybe she was still in love with him and jumped at the chance to satisfy the need I’d planted. Deliberately left him with.