Game For Love: Love Games (Kindle Worlds) (25 page)

“You see why I wanted us to make this tape? I can feel how wet it makes you to watch us, Marlee.” He slipped a finger inside her and there was no doubt that his words were true. Her passage was slick and hot with her juices. Her breath caught and she ground herself against his jeans.

They continued to watch the tape as Declan made love to Marlee with his fingers. She reached behind her and, after some fumbling, freed Declan’s pulsing erection from his jeans. In an instant she was stroking him, clasping him hard, her hands behind her back to reach him, which only pushed her breasts out more for his hand.

“Look at your face, Marlee. See what we do to each other.” He hesitated, seemed to debate how far to go. “See what
I
do to you. Watch how hard you come for me, Marlee. For
me
.”
 

She was so close, both in his arms and on the TV. He lifted the fingers inside of her and brushed his thumb hard across her swollen nub. “Watch yourself come apart as you come in my arms. Watch it, Marlee. Feel it. Feel me. Me, making you come. Only me, Marlee. Only me.”

As if she were synchronized with her onscreen self, Marlee threw her head back and her whole body convulsed as her orgasm tore through her. Declan’s fingers never stilled, making her rise again almost immediately. “See, Marlee. Look at your face. See how hard you come, like you are right now. It’s so good, baby. It nearly makes me spill, myself, just watching you get there.”

Her mind was slowly coming back into focus. Declan’s throbbing penis was still in her grasp but she had stopped stroking, her attention riveted to the TV. On the tape she and Declan had been flammable in the deep chair—you could see the vulnerability on each of their faces, but that was nothing new; they had been looking into each other’s eyes the whole time. There was nothing to hide.

She was just about to turn herself around and take Declan in her mouth when something on the screen stopped her.
 

Declan was walking to the camera, just like he had after their earlier coupling. This time, because they were at the talk-show set, the camera was angled differently, and not only could you see Declan walking toward the camera, you could see Marlee behind him. She was watching Declan move with a look of a love in her eyes that was obvious to read. Declan, having had his back to her as he’d gone to the camera, hadn’t seen that look. He’d never seen that look in Marlee’s eyes.
 

It was hunger and passion and appreciation and—undoubtedly—love.

The love, the vulnerability, was written all over her face, plain for all to see. Plain for Declan to see. She heard him gasp and tighten behind her. She could only imagine what he was feeling. Here was a man who had just videotaped himself and his week-long fling having sex, and here she was all moony-eyed behind him, shooting looks of love at his back, as if she were Cupid and could pierce his heart.

She was humiliated and embarrassed and she hoped that if she turned and put her mouth on Declan that he’d forget what he’d just seen.

As she tried to turn, he held her in place, and whispered in her ear, “Did you ever look at Justin Jones like that?”

Marlee’s body froze in his arms and Declan instantly knew he’d fucked up.
 

She released his hard cock, which slightly deflated at the loss of contact. She scooted forward, then turned around to face him.
 

“Just what do you know about me and Justin?”

“Nothing from you, that’s for sure. But I spent some time in here last night googling the shit out of the both of you. Pretty interesting reading.”

It had crushed him, seeing the photos of a happy Marlee with Jones’s arm wrapped around her. It had been two years ago and seemed to have lasted several months. There were some old gossip site entries about their breakup due to Jones’s womanizing.

“If you saw anything about us at all online then you know that he was unfaithful to me. That he broke my trust, over and over.”

“And you’re punishing me for his sins. You do know that all professional athletes don’t cheat on their partner, right?”

“Of course I do.”
 

She was so close, her face just a movement away from his. He should just stop right now and kiss her. But he couldn’t. The week of trying to prove to her that they had so much in common had been a lost cause from the beginning.

Because some fucker that also happened to be a professional athlete had broken her trust and then broken her heart.

“Cole and Anna. You think he’s out cheating on her?” he asked, though he wasn’t sure what point he was trying to make.

“No, of course not.”

“I know a ton of players that are completely faithful to their wives or girlfriends. We’re not all Justin Jones, you know.”

“I know,” she said quietly. And with not a lot of conviction.

“Are you still in love with him?”

She reared back like he’d hit her. “What? No. Why would you even think that?”

“Because you didn’t mention him.”

“Did
you
share every relationship with me?”

“The important ones, yeah.”

“That’s why the aggressive behavior in bed last night, wasn’t it? It was after you’d been online. You were…what? Trying to stake your claim?”

“Are you saying he still has some kind of hold on you? Some sort of claim?”

“What? Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“So why didn’t you ever mention him?”

She stood now, stepped away from the chair. “Are you kidding me?”

Her clothes were in disarray from where his hands had been on her. Even furious, she was still sexy as hell. It didn’t help that his cock noticed it too and hardened once again.

Looking down at him, she easily noticed his growing cock, and threw her hands up as if in dismay. “Unbelievable. This gets you hard. Well, I guess I really shouldn’t have expected adult behavior from someone who plays a game for a living!”
 

For Declan, it was the final nail, and the lid of his relationship with Marlee closed on the coffin. He rose out of the chair, zipped up, and started to walk from the room. At the doorway he turned back. He knew she heard him stop, but she didn’t turn to face him, just kept staring at the screen of her laptop.

“I tried to make you see, Marlee—all week long I tried. But you refuse to see. Refuse to see, or refuse to let go of your image of pro athletes because of Justin fucking Jones. Either way….it’s both our losses.” She didn’t turn around, but Declan knew she heard every word.

He slept in the guest room that night. He’d wanted to go to a hotel, but that would have meant going into Marlee’s room to pack up his stuff, and she had barricaded herself in there. He’d gone to the kitchen from the den to cool off for a moment. He was going to go back and try to talk to her about it. Get her to open up about being hurt by Justin Jones, and what that did to her perception of Declan. But when he went back, she wasn’t in the den, but her bedroom door was closed, and that pissed him off all over again. Declan didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knocking on the door, begging to be let in, even if was only to pack his bags and leave. No, let her stew in there, wondering what he was doing.

He was doing nothing but cursing himself for being a fool. First for torturing himself with the pictures online of Justin and Marlee together. What had he been thinking? And secondly for even bringing it up to Marlee. If she didn’t want him knowing about her relationship with the ball player, then he should have just left it the hell alone.

Well, ultimately, he’d ended up at the same place he was before, with her unwilling to see beyond this week and him trying to get her to see past it.
 

He felt exhausted, as if he’d spent all week running in circles.
 

In a way, he guessed he had.

Marlee spent the night in agony. She waited for Declan to come into the bedroom. Even if he was leaving early, he needed to come in here to get his stuff. She could hear him downstairs and then in the guest room, and she figured that was where he was spending the night. Part of her was relieved and part was in despair.
 

She really wasn’t that upset about him bringing up Justin. No, it was the look of raw devotion that had shone on her face, unbeknownst to Declan, that had set her off. She didn’t want him to know that, of course. She was mortified that he’d even seen it. She couldn’t make it worse by drawing attention to it. So she had worked herself into a justified snit about his perceived jealousy over Justin.
 

She huddled under the covers, still in her clothes, wishing Declan was with her.

Chapter Eighteen

“A
aaannnddd cut. Great, Declan, that was just great. I think that’s all we need…that one’s a keeper.” The director was a recent NYU grad that the public relations firm had hired to tape all their clients’ audition tapes. He was young and arty with a goatee and an earring, but Declan had come to like him in the three days they had worked together. He had some good tips for Declan and had really put him at ease, allowing him to get some good stuff on tape.

The kid handed a flash drive to Declan. It was a customized drive with a crazy design that Declan had seen the kid use on his business cards and was stenciled on his bag. Must be his insignia or trademark or something quirky that Declan didn’t get. Artists. And they said jocks were weird.
 

Well, maybe only Marlee said that.

The thought of Marlee hit him like a nose tackle with an axe to grind, just as it had every time he’d thought of her since Sunday. Oh, they’d been polite enough his last morning, leaving each other alone in Marlee’s room to each pack their things one at a time, even muddling around the kitchen getting coffee. But it was tense, and there was no mention of the tape, and no mention of them seeing each other again.

Damn. He was so close. He knew she hadn’t been pissed about him bringing up Justin, not really. Not until the end. Something had turned, and damned if he could figure it out. Maybe that was the problem—he thought he could figure Marlee out.
No fucking way.
 

He took the flash drive from the director. “Thanks for all your work, Rowdy. I feel pretty good about the tape. I just want to take it back to the hotel and watch it again, maybe compare it to the ones I made last week in Boston, see if I’ve improved.”

“Well, whatever you did there last week worked, because you were ready on Monday. It was just nice we had some time to polish a few things. Okay, well, your agent has made arrangements for a courier to pick up the drive from your hotel this afternoon. It’ll go to a tech place that will burn DVDs and then deliver them to ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and ESPN by three so they have time to look at them. It’s my understanding that your agent has you booked back to back tomorrow and Friday with them all, right?”

“Yep. I meet with the first one at ten tomorrow morning, then a late lunch with another, the same on Friday with the other two, then I go to Connecticut late Friday to meet with ESPN.”

“Well, the tape’s ready, Declan, so it’s up to you now.”

“Thanks again, Rowdy, it was a pleasure working with you.”

“You too. Now that we’re done and I don’t have to direct you anymore, I don’t mind telling you that you’re my hero. I’ve thought you were the greatest for years. I was so thrilled when I found out I was going to work with you.” The kid’s face lit up as he spoke.

Declan smiled and thanked the kid, thanked the entire crew, and went back to his hotel, shaking his head in amusement and frustration.
 

See, Marlee, everybody loves football players. Even artists. Everyone but you.

Back at the hotel, Declan put the flash drive on the desk so he wouldn’t have to root around for it when the courier came. He went over to his suitcase to find the three flash drives he’d brought with him. The ones he’d made with Marlee. He pulled out four of the flash drive cartridges. That was weird. He could have sworn he’d only packed three. He’d only made three. He carried them all to the desk so he could sort them out. Three were clearly labeled “Wednesday,” “Thursday,” and “Friday,” writing with the Sharpie he’d done right there in the studio. He picked up the fourth drive. There was no writing, but there was a large red X.
 

No way. Marlee had that drive.

He picked up the cartridge and turned it over, unable to believe it was the drive that Marlee had taken. There was a piece of tape on the other side, like something had been attached to it. He rummaged deeper into his bag and felt a small piece of paper. A note. From Marlee.
 

Declan’s palms suddenly became wet and he wished he had a towel snapped to his pants like he did during games so he could wipe his hands dry. He pulled out the folded paper and opened it up.

Declan,

I’m so sorry for the way I behaved last night. And I so enjoyed our incredible week. It’s unfortunate that our last night together was spent apart, but I can’t thank you enough for the best week of my life.

I wanted to give you my copy of the tape so you would have both. It’s just my way of saying how much I trust you. And also, I thought I’d want to watch it over and over, but now I realize that it would be too painful for me, so I want you to have it.