Mackenzie
Jake was drunk.
Falling down drunk.
I couldn’t walk away from him when he was in such a bad state. So ignoring his protests I followed him into the taxi and then endured a deafening twenty-minute silence back to his apartment.
Once inside, I helped him into his bedroom, barely capable of holding him up. We stumbled through the door and fell against the wall. For a brief moment, Jake’s eyes unglazed and he looked down at me, cupping my face in his big hands. His forehead fell to mine and he squeezed his eyes shut, the heat of him engulfing me.
“I’m so in love with you,” he whispered desperately.
“I’m in love with you, too,” I whispered back, feeling a tiny flicker of hope in my chest.
I was hoping this was the start of him forgiving me.
“But you’ve broken me,” he moaned.
And just like that the flicker was gone.
His words killed me and reminded me of what I’d done to him. He would never forgive me for what I had done. I could hear it in his voice and my heart twisted with pain. I needed to get him into bed, roll him on his side and then leave.
He needed to sleep it off and I needed to get the hell away from him so I could drown in my own guilt.
Using all my strength I dragged him over to the bed but crumbled under the six-foot-seven wall of muscle that was Jake Pennington, and we fell to the bed. Jake was a dead weight on top of me.
Of course this was happening.
Feeling his weight on me was a sudden turn on. One leg was trapped under him while the other fell to the side, putting him against the spot that suddenly ached for him. As if he realized, he looked up, his lips parting and his eyes filling with a sudden need.
“Oh, Z . . .” he moaned, grabbing my face and pressing his lips hard against mine. His mouth was insistent, opening my lips and thrusting his tongue in. It stole my breath from me and set every cell in my body on fire with a need for more. His hips pressed down, giving me no choice but to feel what our kissing was doing to him.
He was drunk and he hated me and I knew it was wrong. But my body didn’t know any better and it wanted him. It wanted him to peel my clothes from my body and fill me with his cock. It wanted his weight on me, heavy and solid, sliding against me as he embedded himself deep into me. It wanted the comfort and reassurance of the love making that had once been all and everything to me.
Oh, God, I missed him.
Jake inhaled thickly, shifting so he could press all the good bits of him against all of the good bits of me, and the throb between my thighs far outweighed the argument in my head. I wanted our clothes gone but I knew it would be wrong, so I settled for pretending I could stop this at any time and kept kissing him, his moans fueling my fire.
But as quickly as he started kissing me, he stopped and rose up on his palms like he was doing a push up above me, and fixed his glazed eyes to mine. Bicep muscles bulged on either side of my head and his chest was a thick wall of muscle before my eyes.
“I fucking loved you,” he said with an edge to his voice that dampened every ember of desire in my body. “Fucking. Loved. You.”
I could only stare at him as his drunk eyes roamed my face.
“But it was nothing but a bet . . .” he whispered, frowning and looking confused. “How could it only be a bet? I don’t . . . I don’t understand . . .”
I took his chin in my hand. “What I feel for you has nothing to do with any bet. Do you understand me?”
He exhaled deeply, looking slightly weakened by my words. He wanted to believe me but he was at war with himself over it.
Clumsily, he climbed off me and sat at the end of the bed. He shoved his hands through his hair and then dropped his elbows to his knees. I waited a moment and then slid over to sit next to him, not touching him but aching to do so. I wanted to wrap him in my arms and soothe the pain from his body. I wanted to somehow transport us back in time to the cabin when it was only us, when I hadn’t hurt him and he had felt inspired and motivated by me—not hurt and broken by me like he did now.
“What have you done to me?” he whispered, running his hand through his hair. The pain in his voice stole the air from my lungs and sat like a weight on my chest.
I was so sorry. So very, very sorry.
“And I dreamed your dream for you, and now your dream is real . . . how can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals?” he sang softly.
“Please don’t,” I whispered. I couldn’t bear to hear him sing our song like that.
“Why not?” he spoke quietly, but his voice was cold. Ice cold. “Because isn’t that exactly how it is, Mackenzie? Wasn’t I just one of your deals?”
His tormented eyes found mine and I could see his pain etched firmly in the sharp contours of his face.
“That’s not true.” My own voice was meek. Regretful. Full of shame. Threatening to break beneath a heavy load of remorse.
He looked away. “You need to go.”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t want to, Jake. Please let me stay with you. I need to make this right.”
He shook his head and drew in a deep breath as he squeezed his eyes closed, waited and then opened them again.
He turned his head and in a moment of clarity his eyes found mine. “We’re done.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Don’t say that.”
He looked away. “Goodbye, Mackenzie.”
The way he said it. The tone. The finality. It told me what I dreaded the most. That when he said goodbye, he truly meant it.
I stood up.
And not bothering to hide my tears, I walked away.
Two days later, the Fury lost game four to the Ice Cats, three to two.
* * *
The day after the Fury lost to the Ice Cats, I flew to LA to have lunch with Darryl Stanton Williams.
AKA Purgatory.
AKA a giant hulk of a man.
AKA a giant hulk of a man who happened to be a really nice guy.
I was surprised.
We sat in the late morning sunlight at the Garden Bar & Restaurant in downtown LA. He wore a handsome suit custom-made to accommodate his massive size, Paul Evans Italian leather shoes, and gold on almost every finger. In the ring he was all bravado and show biz, but outside of the ring he was a gentle giant with impeccable manners and an obvious respect for women. He was nothing but a gentleman to me.
It made what I was going to say all the more difficult because I knew I would have enjoyed working with him.
But I wouldn’t be.
“I’m sorry, Darryl. I know my father said I would be handling your contract but I won’t be.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“Because I’m committed elsewhere.” I cleared my throat. “It was meant to be a short-term thing but it turned into something a little more long-term.”
He nodded and sunlight gleaned on his aviator sunglasses.
“Well, that’s a shame, Mackenzie,” he said, his voice deep and masculine. “I was really looking forward to working with you. I’ve heard good things. And seeing what you did for Jake Pennington . . . man, who wouldn’t want to work with you? You’ve made the whole sporting community stand up and take notice. I could really use someone like you in my corner.”
Inwardly, I sighed at the mention of Jake. But then, I always sighed when I thought about Jake. It was the only way I could push back the heartache.
“I appreciate you saying that, Darryl,” I said, taking a sip from a tall, frosted glass. It was filled with sparkling water and chopped pieces of orange, cucumber and mint. “I hope this doesn’t reflect badly on my father’s agency.”
He shook his head. “Nah. Of course not. I’ve been dying to have your old man represent me for as long as I can remember.”
I relaxed. “Thank you.”
He smiled. “But you could do me one favor.”
I smiled and nodded. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
Less than five hours later I sat in the back of a limo, dressed to the nines in a Valentino floor-length dress and clasping an Alexander McQueen lace butterfly clutch as we pulled up outside the lit-up LA Live complex.
We were at the ESPYs.
And I was Purgatory’s date.
* * *