Dirty Player_A Football Romance Read online

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dominic

  I decided to stay on campus during spring break. I figured there would be more people staying, but as it turned out, most people decided to leave. The place was quiet, but I didn’t mind. I actually really enjoyed having fewer people around. I didn’t see Candice, so I assumed she had gone home. There were so few people that if she was there, I would definitely have seen her. I was surprised to find that she’d gone home. After everything her father had done it could only be awkward in that household. I thought maybe she’d gone home with her new friend, but I’d overheard her talking to someone else about going back to Japan. I hated that my mind still went to Candice even when I was trying so hard not to think about her. I wished I hadn’t broken up with her, but I knew I had done the right thing for my game. The coach wanted me to focus, and I was proving to him that it was all that I was doing. I had noticed that he had eased up on me.

  “Glad to see you more focused,” he said to me when he saw me out on the field again.

  “Coach Bane, I was always focused,” I said to him. I still felt a little angry at the way he had treated me. Even the other guys agreed that I was the hardest working person on the team.

  The coach looked slightly uncomfortable at my words. He knew it too. Had Derek gotten to him? Had Candice’s father gotten to him? I still had no proof, but I knew that the coach had wanted me to break up with Candice because of them.

  “Well,” he said. “That’s good. That’s good. I’d like you to run some drills while you’re out here. Might as well make the most of your time. You’re well on your way to playing in the NFL if you continue like this.”

  I nodded. “That’s why I’m out here,” I said.

  I ran off to get started. Lately, I wasn’t in the mood to talk to the coach like I used to. It was a pity because the two of us had always gotten along so well with one another. He had always respected me, and I had always given him the same respect. I still wanted to play as hard as I could, and I still wanted to go after my dreams, but I didn’t feel like being friendly to him anymore. I looked around the field and saw that I was the only one out there. If this wasn’t dedication, then I didn’t know what else he wanted from me.

  I ran drills for the next two hours, barely even stopping to catch my breath. Every now and again, I would catch someone else on the field, but for the most part, it was only me. I decided to take a break and went to get my bottle of water from the stands when I noticed Coach Bane around the corner talking to someone. He couldn’t see me from where he was standing, but I had a clear shot of him. I couldn’t hear what he was saying but from the way he was standing and the gestures he was making I could tell it wasn’t a pleasant conversation. I moved slowly so that I could see who he was having such an intense conversation with and my eyes widened when I saw who it was. It was Lionel, Candice’s father, and from the way they were standing, I could tell that it was Lionel that was calling all the shots.

  I felt livid. I had been right about him all along. I knew that Coach Bane wouldn’t have tried to sway me to break up with Candice for no reason. I had my suspicions that Lionel was involved all along, but I hadn’t known for sure until now. I had to force myself to calm down and walk away. I wanted to go right up to them and accuse them in person, but I knew that wouldn’t help my case. I needed to have a calm mind, and right now I was anything but calm.

  Instead, I walked off the field and made my way to the gym where I spent the next half an hour pummeling the punching bag. I’d been doing this a lot lately. It had been my way of dealing with my problems. I needed some form of release, and this seemed to be the best way of doing it. I was glad that there was nobody else at the gym with me. It gave me the chance to hit the bag with as much force as I wanted to. The more I punched, the better I felt. By the time I was finished, I felt better. I climbed into the shower and washed the sweat, the dirt and the pain away.

  A day passed, and I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my new knowledge. I felt angry at the coach and angry at Candice’s father for getting in the way. Also, I now wondered if staying away from Candice was even going to do anything for me. Perhaps the damage had already been done. If Lionel was still talking to Coach Bane, it meant that my future aspirations for the NFL might already be tarnished. He was probably going to make sure that I never played for them. Why else would he be talking to the coach? The man only thought about himself, and unfortunately, Coach Bane was letting him walk all over him.

  The more I thought about it, the more upset I got. Had I really ruined my chances of being with Candice for nothing? Was I going to remain without a girlfriend and without a football career because of him? I thought of going back to the gym, but even that didn’t entice me. I needed to see Candice. She was the only person that I wanted to see.

  As I walked out my dorm, I saw Coach Bane in the distance. He spotted me and called me over, waving and smiling at me as if nothing was going on. I turned away and pretended not to have noticed him. Screw you, I thought as I walked away. I wasn’t going to let other people dictate who I could or couldn’t see. Lionel had already taken me away from Candice once before, and if I let him do it again, I was only allowing him to win. No, I was going to take matters into my own hands. If I wanted to be with Candice, then nothing and nobody could stop me.

  I climbed onto my bike and made my way over to her house. I knew exactly where it was. It was a different house from the one she had lived in when she was younger, but the moment she described it to me, I knew which house it was. It was the biggest house on the street, grander than anything I had ever seen. It was obvious that it was where Lionel would choose to live. He was not a modest man. He wanted people to know about him. He wanted them to know how rich and popular he was. I was glad that it didn’t impress me one bit.

  I parked across the road and looked out at the house. Thankfully, Candice had once explained to me that her room overlooked the small park across the road. Looking at the house, I could now see exactly which room she was talking about. I climbed off the bike and stared up at the window, inwardly willing her to look out and see me. I thought about trying something romantic and throwing rocks at her window, but I wasn’t sure that I trusted myself. I imagined throwing one and breaking the window and setting off some sort of alarm. Or maybe I had the room all wrong. I was sure it was hers, but I didn’t want to take the chance of throwing a stone at a window that ended up being her father's. I thought I saw movement, and my heart soared, but after a few minutes, she still had not looked out. I got out my phone and sent her a text message.

  Look out the window, I typed.

  She didn’t read it right away, and for a moment I thought that she might not even be home. But, just as I was about to give up home, I saw her face appear at the window. Her blonde hair cascaded around her shoulders and when she caught sight of me, she looked surprised. I smiled and waved, and I was glad when she did the same. I saw her looking down at something and then heard a beep as a message came through on my phone.

  What’s going on? The message said.

  Come with me. I want to take you for a ride, I said.

  I thought she would say no. After all, I was the one that had broken up with her. She had disappeared from the window, and she hadn’t replied to my message. So I just waited, hoping that she would come. Then, I saw the front door open, and I watched as she ran towards me. I didn’t give her a chance to ask me anything. I just picked her up, kissed her, and handed her a helmet.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Candice

  I had no idea what was going on. One minute I was sitting in my room wondering what to do with my day. The next I had kissed Dominic, and my arms were wrapped around him as we rode off on his motorcycle. I didn’t have time to fully process it. All I knew was that I was exactly where I wanted to be. I’d ask questions later. For now, I was just going to enjoy it.

  We rode for a long time. I watched as the changing scenery moved around me. Undulat
ing hills in the distance, long stretches of gravel road. I had no idea where we were going, and I liked that I was seeing places that I had never seen before. He was the one that had been away for so many years; I was the one that had lived here my whole life, and yet I had no idea where we were. We rode for what felt like hours and I didn’t want to get off. When I was on the bike, I felt safe. I felt hidden from the prying eyes of Derek, the disappointment of my father, the worry of my mother. I felt like I could finally be myself. Dominic had made me feel that way about myself when I was only eleven years old, and he was doing it all over again.

  When we eventually got off, I saw that we were at a motel off the interstate. We jumped off, and he looked at me.

  “Want to stay the night?” he suggested.

  I grinned at him. I nodded. I would have to let my mother know. But I would worry about that later. For now, all I wanted was to be with him and to forget about everything and everyone else.

  I felt foolish as we walked into the motel. Foolish, and admittedly kind of excited. I felt like I was on a movie set, or perhaps a woman cheating on her husband with another man. I kept glancing at the receptionist to see if we were being judged, but the woman at the counter barely glanced our way. I saw a magazine lying in front of her, open to a page about celebrity gossip. She chewed gum while she typed our details into a computer, and then handed us a key.

  “Room 205,” she said without looking at us. I had never seen a more bored-looking person in my life.

  We walked wordlessly to our room and closed the door behind us when we got to it. The room was small but clean. There wasn’t much to it other than a bed, but really that was all that we needed. We both knew it. Ever since I’d slept with Dominic, beds didn’t feel right without him beside me. I wondered if he felt the same way. But he was there, so he must feel the same way.

  “Your hair,” he said. “You’re beautiful.”

  “I thought you liked the red,” I said as my hand flew self-consciously to my head.

  “I did. But I like this too. It’s . . . god, Candy . . . I’ve missed you. I . . .”

  But I didn’t want to talk about anything. I didn’t want to hear about why he had broken up with me or why he was back. I didn’t want to talk about ex-boyfriends, or football, or parents. I just wanted to be with him. I shook my head.

  “We’re together now,” I said.

  The room was cold. I noticed that the window was open and that the wind was blowing through, the curtains lifting up into the air. But I didn’t close it. Instead, I took my clothes off, and I saw that his eyes went immediately to my nipples, cold and hard. He picked me up and placed me on the bed, his lips feasting themselves upon my breasts. He sucked, not too hard, but not too soft, with just the right amount of tongue for it to feel sensual. I arched back, raising my arms and spreading out my legs. The bed wasn’t very big, and I wanted to take up as much space as possible.

  He took off his clothes, and moved back on top of me, kissing me with so much passion and longing that I knew he hadn’t stopped thinking about me during our time apart. We’d both tried so hard not to think about each other, but now that we were together, all that pent-up emotion was getting released. I felt him harden against my leg, and I gasped as he bit my lip. It felt like we were on a rollercoaster ride, going up and up and up. We were both waiting for the fall and the feeling of exhilaration that was going to come over us. I wasn’t ready to come down yet; I wanted to continue moving upwards for as long as possible.

  We continued like that. This ride that never came down, stopping every now and again to catch our breath and to not give in to the emotion. We kissed and licked and touched each other, but still, he did not make a move to slide inside me. We knew that the moment he did, it would soon be over. But I couldn’t take it much longer. If he didn’t come inside me, I was going to scream. I was impatient. I had been without him for too long.

  “Nicky . . . .” I said.

  “Yeah?” he said in between breaths.

  “Fuck me. Please.”

  He smiled. Then, as he leaned down to kiss me, I felt him enter me, and I opened my legs wider to accommodate his fullness. I moaned. “Yes. Yes.” I wasn’t even sure if I had spoken out loud. Inside my mind, I was screaming, crying out for him.

  As expected, we didn’t last long once he was sheathed inside me. I didn’t mind. I couldn’t take it any longer. I had to give in to the sensations that were overthrowing my senses. I held onto him, holding out as much as I could. But the moment I felt him come inside me, I found myself doing the same, clenching around him as I felt him pulsing from within. We came together, trembling in ecstasy, and for the first time since I had been without him, I felt like I was home.

  “It’s good to have you back, Candice,” he said afterward. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  “I’ve missed you too.” I didn’t even care that he had broken up with me. He’d obviously done what he thought he had to, even if that wasn’t the right thing to do at all.

  “Want to talk?”

  I shook my head. “Not just yet. I just want to lie here. I haven’t slept properly for a while.”

  “Yeah, same here,” he said. Then he kissed the top of my head. “Come on then; let’s get some sleep. I love you, Candy.”

  I turned to look at him. It was the first time he had ever told me that he loved me, and the words took me by surprise.

  “I love you too, Nicky.”

  He chuckled. “Bet you didn’t think you’d say that to me when you first me all those years ago.”

  I laughed. “No way. You were just a silly little boy then. Now look at you.”

  “A silly little man?” he suggested.

  I giggled. “I loved you then, and I love you now. Just in a different way. Back then the only thing I really cared about was that street game we used to play. What did we call it?”

  “I forgot about that! Torture, wasn’t it? See how many times we could run up and down the road. First person to get tired loses. Who the hell came up with that awful game anyway?”

  “I have no idea. Doesn’t sound like something I would do,” I said. “Although, I liked trying to beat you, so maybe I did. I think I cheated a few times.”

  “How did you cheat?”

  I laughed. “I have no idea. I just vaguely remember cheating. Probably told you that I did more laps than I did.”

  “Sneaky. Want to go out and play it now?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Good answer,” he said.

  We lay like that for a while, just talking about the old days. Neither of us mentioned my father or what had happened just before his family moved away. We likened it to ‘the perfect summer’ because at the time, it had felt like we were the only two people that existed.

  “Sort of like now,” he said, and I smiled at him.

  “Yeah, like now.”

  I closed my eyes, and with his hands on mine, I finally fell asleep. A beautiful, dreamless, full sleep that my body had so desperately craved. There would be time for more talking the next day.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dominic

  I had done the right thing by going to get Candice. I was surprised that she hadn’t asked me yet about the breakup, but I was glad. There was plenty of time to talk. Just being together again was all that was important. I looked at her now. The comforter had slid off ever so slightly, so just her bare shoulders were peeking out. She looked calm and serene as she lay there. Her lips moved ever so slightly, and I wondered if she was dreaming. Her soft skin seemed even softer now that her hair was back to its original color, and I reached out and slowly moved a strand away from her face. How could I have been so stupid to have left her for so long? How had I lived so long without her before now? She was, by leaps and bounds, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I could understand why Derek was so upset about losing her. I was sure that he didn’t love her, but I could imagine how hard it would be to have someone like Candice walk away from you. I l
eaned over and kissed her, but she remained steadfastly asleep.

  I slowly got out bed, threw some clothes on, and made my way downstairs. The receptionist from the night before was there, looking as tired and bored as she had before. She barely looked at me when I walked up to her.

  “Good morning,” I said brightly, and she looked up at me annoyed. Clearly, it was too early to be in such a good mood.

  “Did you have a nice sleep?” she asked. It sounded like she was reading from cue cards. The voice of someone who had said the same thing over and over again to people that she never saw again.

  “Wonderful. Uh, is there anywhere that I can get some coffee or something to eat?”

  “Yep, we have a little café around the corner. They don’t sell much, but you should be able to find something edible, at least.”

  “Perfect, thank you,” I said and made my way toward where she had pointed.

  She was right; the café was small, but the smell of coffee was inviting.

  “What can I get for you today?” the woman behind the counter said. Unlike the receptionist, she was happy and smiley. Perhaps she’d already sampled some of her own delicious-smelling coffee.

  I smiled back. “I’ll have two, actually, make it three, coffees, please. And a few of your best-selling muffins.”

  “Coming right up,” she said. I watched as she expertly made the coffee from a fancy machine that seemed misplaced in this small café. She must’ve seen me watching because she turned around and grinned at me. “I know,” she said. “The machine doesn’t seem to belong here, does it? But trust me, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from experience, it’s that everyone just wants a good cup of coffee in the morning. And why should this place be any different? We might not be a fancy hotel or anything, but we make damn fine coffee, and that’s what keeps people coming back.”