Blaze, page 43
“Of course I want to be with you, but the timing is terrible. Surely you can admit that.”
She is right. We need distance, not extra fuel to pour on the fire. I can’t keep my hands off her when she’s near.
“I’m not going anywhere, Jensen, but you’ve got a big game coming up, and I’ll be back on shift. We stay away from each other and say nothing, let social media squabble over it. When the time’s right, we come out.”
“Will it ever be right?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know.”
We both turn silent. The best course of action is to let the storm pass. I’m used to the press, as is Scarlet to an extent, but this isn’t a puff piece about Josh’s favorite type of ice cream. No, there’s a vindictiveness in these words I’ve never seen before. “We’re both going to have to watch our backs.”
She nods. “I will. No texting or calls, okay?”
I stand, gather my things, can’t believe I’m about to walk out like this, but knowing it has to be done. “Fine. You’ll be alright?”
“I’ll be at the hospital. Crazed ice addicts should keep my mind off things.”
“Be careful,” I tell her, “and I’m not talking about the hospital. The paps are going to be everywhere. Keep your curtains closed and your door locked. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Any sign of trouble, you call the cops, and if the cops won’t play ball, you call me.”
“Okay.”
She’s standing there, and all I want to do is gather her in my arms and keep her safe, take us both to that bedroom, lock the door and never emerge again.
I reach for the door, a “wait” coming from behind me.
I turn, hopeful.
“You should probably use the window.”
*
“What the fuck, Collins? Get your head out of hemorrhoid inspection and back into the fucking game!”
I can’t blame Coach for going off. Two days out from the clash with the Dynamo and I’m all over the place. I’m making easy mistakes, fumbling the ball like it’s coated in silicone.
Coach shakes his head. “If you give that ginger-head Dynamo attacker an inch, he’s going to take a mile, Collins, paste your ass all over this field. You going to let those Houston ass-kissers into our stadium and take our glory?”
“No, Coach,” I reply, creating a divot in the grass with my boot and wishing I could somehow dig my way back to Scarlet’s place, anything to get away from this field where nothing makes sense any more.
Coach comes close, his gut kissing my jersey. “I never thought I’d say it, but your brother’s showing you up, son.” He lowers his voice. “Less pussy, more perfection, hey?”
“Yes, Coach.” Fucker.
I spy Josh drilling by himself near the penalty area. Coach isn’t kidding. He looks better than ever. Far from the breakup sending him into a spiral of depression, it’s kicked him in the ass. I’ve never seen anyone work so hard, myself included.
He spots me, nods, and gets back to it. I thought he’d have something to say about the article, try to knock me out or worse, given how we parted in the alley, but all he’s given me is space, always at the corner of my vision, swooping behind me in the locker room, a dark look of determination on his face. If he wants to hurt me, he’s biding his time. Come at me, cocksucker.
His reaction has only deepened my confusion. If he came out swinging, I could handle it. It’s what I expect. This, this cold-shoulder routine. It’s thrown me off. For Christ’s sake I’m staying at a fucking hotel, the swarm around my apartment is so thick. I can’t take a piss without some reporter or pap squeezed up against the window.
And Scarlet? It’s been days without a call or text, but that was the agreement. Thing is, I can’t take it much longer being without her. I’ve had a taste of heaven and now the doors have been slammed shut. If it keeps up, I’m going to snap, and right now I need to be completely focused. This game is crucial. I fuck it up and we’re in a bad place on the ladder. It will be almost impossible to climb back to the top.
You’re part of a team.
I look around at the others. I don’t know what Josh has said to them, if anything, but it’s clear I’m not in their good books. Maybe they read the article, but that’s it. They don’t know the story. In fact, I’m betting Josh hasn’t told anyone they’ve split up, all too eager to play the sympathy card, no doubt.
You do that, big brother.
The stress is balling at the base of my skull, all of it becoming too much—the pressure, the catcalls from people on the street, the stares and constant questions. The game should be all that matters—me, the ball, the goal—but it’s not. For the first time in my life I’m slipping, and it’s a deep fucking hole.
*
The recent cold has caused the turf to deteriorate. It’s patchy under my boots, far from the soft give of the artificial turf so common in Europe now.
This should be home, where I feel welcome. Right now it’s like I’m standing on another planet.
I see the ball drift towards the box, the Dynamo defenders on the back foot. I take a deep breath and lean forward, filling my lungs as I drive hard down the left. I scoop the ball over the head of a Dynamo mid-fielder and power on, feet whistling below.
I spot another Dynamo dickhead about twenty yards off, but he’s slow. I’ll send this puppy point-blank before he even makes it to me.
Josh thunders down the right, a fucking blur of speed, setting himself right up in the corner of the box unguarded and open.
The path ahead is clear and we’re one down. We need this. I could pass to Josh, easy, but I’m not going to let him fuck it up, not when it’s me who needs to claw back some respect.
I bring my leg back, welcome the mild burn in my quads that builds right before the fatal blow. My hand comes out, finger letting the Dynamo goalie know I’m coming in hot.
Wake up, asshole. Special delivery.
I lean in, the air, the crowd, everything pushing me towards the kick.
I’m bringing my foot down, swinging it for the center of ball when something takes me out from below.
For a second I’m weightless as the ball continues to roll ahead. I spin in the air—sky, ground, sky, ground—smashing hard back to earth with my shoulder. The pain runs like a knife gutting my side as I spin on the grass, hands outstretched and sliding to a stop just in time to see the turnover, the ball sailing over my head in return and the Dynamo heading fast for another goal.
I get to my feet, wincing, but the pain distant.
The Dynamo defender who took out my legs winks as he runs past me. “You fucking blind, Collins? My dead grandfather could have seen that one coming.”
I shove him. “Fuck you,” but he jogs away laughing.
A box-to-box gets it to the Dynamo number ten, the kick wide enough to slip past our goalie and seal our fate. There’s less than a minute left. We’d need the Almighty himself to descend and don boots to have a chance in hell of coming back.
A highlight reel runs through my head in vibrant color. I’m ripping through a thicket of defenders, a golfer lining up for a putt and slotting the ball neatly home, the net like a sail set in squall. ‘What a goal!’ comes the cry from the commentators. I see my college games and every win, all those smiling faces and shaken hands. I see the girls that followed, their bodies, but I don’t seem them. They’re the same.
I see Scarlet, clearly—her eyes, her platinum hair and soft breasts. I see her like she’s standing beside me.
It’s not to be. I should have my eye on the Dynamo CF, I should be channeling fucking Ronaldo, but instead I’m off with the fairies. I let him slip by without a tussle as if he were an apparition, and he practically floats down to our box for another run, the resounding groan in the stands marking the Dynamo’s third and final goal.
The horn blows and I’m stuck looking up at the board: 3-0, the giant numbers mocking me.
“Collins!” shouts Coach. He looks furious.
Josh is smiling as he walks past. “Way to go, superstar.” He spits at the field and continues on while I stand there cold with shock. I’m on a battlefield that’s just been the scene of a massacre. The blood is on my hands. That was an easy pass to Josh. I should have seen that defender. I should have been in the game, not stuck in some fucking limbo world holding my cock.
I pound at my head with my fist. “Fucking idiot. Fuck, fuck you!”
I’m tight, no give at all in my body.
You’re slipping. You’re fucking slipping, and soon there will be no return.
I search the crowd, but every face tells the same story of disappointment.
All except one.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SCARLET
Jensen sees me. There is the briefest smile before he’s pulled away by the coach. I can hear them from here. The guy’s always scared me a little, a kind of Humpty Dumpty Scarface type of character. If his words were fists, Jensen would be on the floor by now.
I considered wearing a hoodie to the game. I considered not coming at all, in fact, but I made the right decision. Now more than ever Jensen needs me.
I stand and make my way to the stairs, a stumpy woman in a Victory jersey shaking her finger as I pass. I’m sure I hear “bitch” at my back. I steel myself and move on, working against the crowd to get down to the field.
Gerry, one of the security guys, sees me. He’s worked at the stadium his whole life, started in the locker rooms lacing boots. “Scarlet! Hey. Where you been?”
He opens the gate and I pass through. “Wishing I was invisible.”
He leans close. “You ask me, you made the right call. Josh has everyone fooled, but not old Gerry, you hear? Jensen’s a catch.”
“Sounds like you want to date him. Seems like a lot of guys do,” I joke.
He smiles back. “Mrs. Gerry is more than enough for me to handle. Now, you get on now. Go console that boy of yours before he does something stupid.”
Jensen? Doing something stupid? Wouldn’t be the first time, but I know now it’s all part of the act.
By the time I enter the private players’ area, it’s cleared out, the team anxious to get to the nearest bar to drown their sorrows—that or get away from a fire-and-brimstone sermon from Coach Andrews.
It seems like the air conditioning’s busted, a table of drinks untouched against a wall proclaiming Victory as the ‘Blue Devils—Pride of the East Coast’. I don’t think anyone’s feeling much pride at the moment, the least of all a shirtless Jensen, sitting with one leg up on the bench.
I take a seat next to him, allow a little bit of distance between us. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Tough game.”
“You think?” The comeback is sharp, uncharacteristic.
I go to stand. “I can leave if you want, leave you to sulk and lick your wounds.”
He takes my arm, pulling me back down, softening. “No, stay. I’m glad you came.”
“It wasn’t all bad, you know.”
“We lost the game and it was practically my fault every time.”
“You’re part of a team, Jensen. A team takes collective responsibility. They don’t send their star player to the killing fields just because he had one off game.”
“So you do think I was off?”
Damn. “You’ve played better, but that’s not the point. If Coach Andrews is expecting you to single-handedly carry Victory, he’s delusional.”
“I’d love to hear you say that to his face.”
“I would, happily.”
There’s a buzzing sound in the background I can’t place.
“No sign of Josh?” I query.
Jensen glances away. “Left with the others. Can’t say we’re talking much.”
“At least you’re not doing UFC impressions out in the parking lot.”
“Why did you come, Scarlet? Honestly. I thought we were going to cool it for a little while.”
“I came to support you.”
He snorts. “Support?”
“What, you think I’m a distraction, is that it? You think you lost the game because I was here like some unlucky charm?”
“Maybe.” He throws his hands up. “Fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know anything at the moment. I’m tired, I’m super-fucking frustrated, and you’re not really helping.”
I know he’s angry, misguided, taking it out on me, but I refuse to become another punching bag. Those days are over. I didn’t leave Josh to cop the same emotional blackmail from his brother. “Fuck you, Jensen.”
The swearing has his full attention. “What did you just say?”
I swallow and say it again, a little more daintily this time. “Fuck… you, for saying that. You know that’s what your brother used to tell me? He had a bad game and the first thing he’d do is blame me. I’m not about to let you walk over me like he did.”
He reaches for me but I pull away. “No, Jensen. Apologize.”
I can’t imagine any Collins likes hearing that word. Messes with their alpha voodoo. Jensen stands abruptly, shouting. “Me, apologize? For what?”
I stand, heart beating but not about to back down. “For being an ass.”
“Oh, an ass,” he mocks sarcastically. “Got me right in the heart, that one.”
I get angry. “You should blame yourself for what happened out there. Josh was open. He had the better angle, but no, Jetstream Jensen needed to do it himself. How could you not see that defender coming?”
I know this is going to piss him off, but right now I don’t care. He needs to know I’m not a pushover.
His shoulders are high, nostrils wide. He takes a step forward, boots clattering on the concrete. I haven’t seen him this wound up, have no idea what he’s going to do or is even capable of, but I stand my ground regardless and refuse to budge.
He continues to step forward, forcing me to back up, back up until I’m against the lockers. He stares down at me with smoldering eyes. He opens his mouth, but it’s not to speak.
The kiss comes completely unexpected—fast, desperate. We’re in the open here. Anyone could walk in, but Jensen hardly seems to care.
He holds himself away with a hand denting the metal door beside me, a lock pressing into my ass. “You’re right about the game, but you’re wrong about me. I’m nothing like my brother.”
Goosebumps rise on the back of neck. My heart hammers harder. The air grows colder, seems to draw like a noose around me.
I’m paralyzed with something, but it’s not fear. I pant forward into the hot fog of his breath, our mouths closing together again.
This kiss is dark, twisted, a power struggle between us, tongues moving and shifting for position, Jensen’s hands groping at my sides, crushing me against the lockers.
Wetness spreads between my thighs. I press them tighter together, hot shame heating my face as he takes my neck and deepens the kiss, starves me of oxygen.
We’re chest to chest, his hand moving under my skirt and rising fast, cloth bunching on the underside of his wrist. He presses his fingers into the crotch of my panties and I gasp. I bite his lower lip, more out of shock than desire. He pulls away, the plump slug of his lower lip turned bright, chestnut eyes boring into me.
I gasp again as he takes hold of the crotch of my underwear and pulls, the garment torn away easily, snapping at my hips and discarded to the floor, his fingers free to explore the damp folds of my pussy unobstructed. There can be no hiding my arousal now, the sudden flood he has conjured.
A needful pang runs between my legs, a sprout of pure wickedness extending out inside me as another hand runs up my side, my shirt bunched above my breasts, my bra popping upwards. My bare nipples turn stuff, dark and tawny, pinned to his chest.
Our tongues play like liquid, cold and hot and constantly in motion. The urgency by which he takes me is a surprise, a burning need drilling down into my sopping core.
I glance at the door, fearful we’re going to be exposed. Anyone could come through that door—Angela, Coach, even Josh.
I place my hands against the hard sides of his body and tremble against him, my own skin suddenly on fire.
His fingers close around a breast and I cry out, voice muffled by his mouth. I pant into him, his tongue silencing me every time and the fluorescent lights above bathing us in harsh, electric light.
He nips at my top lip before sweeping down my neck, planting blooms of moisture before he takes a nipple into his mouth, his head tilting and eyes watching for my reaction.
He wraps his tongue around a nipple before drawing it down to my belly, hands pulling what’s left of my skirt higher, sex exposed. He kneels before me, hands on the soft summits of my hips.
I pant, not sure whether to allow or deny him, pushing at the top of his head, but my burst of power is evaporating at his touch.
He moves his head up, grounding his tongue in the hollow pond of my navel. The stubble on his chin rasps against my skin, my stomach clenching hard and my core flipping over itself in terror and delight.
His fingers shift under my backside, dig into the weighty flesh of my ass, and there he presses his tongue forward, right into my burning center.
His tongue moves back and forth in slow, agonizing strokes, exploring and testing. I sigh and quiver, fingers splayed against the cold metal of the lockers as he finds the stiff bud at the top of my mound. He presses his tongue against it firmly, a master of seduction. He sweeps over it, pulling it into this mouth, suckling upon it until I am soaking and sticky below, the heady scent of my arousal mixing with the damp earth on his boots, everything hot and cloudy.
“Jensen,” I moan, unable to elaborate further.
He slides a finger inside me, stroking it leisurely in and out while he moves his tongue in time, licking, sucking, fucking me to completion. But more than anything, he tastes me, worshipping at my hidden altar like he’s starving for it too long, cast into the desert.
I grind down against him hard, one of my suddenly heavy hands running through his hair, holding him in place while I buck and tilt to take him deeper, anything to relieve the fire that burns below.
