Quinn
It was late when I finally got home. I mean, when Dante dropped me off at home. It was past midnight, and I was exhausted. Dante had made sure of that.
Before he left, he kissed me in the car. He didn’t come out and walk me to my apartment door, and I was glad that he didn’t. It would have felt too much like a date. It was enough that we were having sex when we weren’t supposed to be, I didn’t want it to get even messier. I couldn’t afford for that to happen.
Really, we had already gone too far. We were doing something that we weren’t supposed to be doing, and since neither of us wanted to stop, we had to somehow maintain that we were going to remain focused on what we were really there to do.
Besides, we had already had sex that night anyway. Again would have just been overkill.
No… it would have been probably the best night of my life, but there were limits. Even between us, who had knocked all of them down, there were limits. I was trying my hardest to hang onto every shred of professionalism I had left, which wasn’t much.
I knew what it sounded like when I had offered him the surprise in exchange for the short interview when we went upstairs at the club. I wasn’t bribing him. It was just an incentive. I wanted him to talk to me, and he wanted me to suck his dick. It wasn’t like I wasn’t going to suck his dick unless he gave me the answers I was looking for. No, as much as it embarrassed me to say it, I was ready to do most things with that guy if he asked me.
I wasn’t making him say anything he didn’t want to. He didn’t seem like I was twisting his arm. He was being honest, surprisingly honest. Refreshingly honest. He didn’t have to be if he didn’t want to, but he was.
Why was his past so dark? I understood that a lot of athletes came from humble backgrounds—but shit—he came from just…the worst. I couldn’t imagine. I wanted to compare it to my own childhood, and there was no comparison. My parents were still married, and I had no siblings. I had had nannies who took care of me when my parents were at work, and I was never bullied. I hadn’t seen half the shit that he had by the time he was sixteen in my whole life. We hadn’t been rich, but we were comfortable.
I loved that he was willing to take it there with me. I liked to think that maybe it meant that he trusted me and that he thought that sort of information was in safe hands with me. I wasn’t about to try and use it against him or try to shame him for it. I had to hold back everything that would come over me when he talked. I didn’t want to cry or react in a way that would make him stop. I didn’t want to say I felt sorry for him because you didn’t tell that to a man.
He didn’t want my pity. He wanted to feel acknowledged and know that his vulnerability wasn’t about to be used against him. I didn’t know how I was going to end up writing about this stuff, the hard and sensitive stuff, but the pressure was on. I didn’t want to disrespect him and the honesty and openness that he had shown me when he didn’t really have to.
Everything was fine as long as it didn’t end up skewing what it was that I was there to do. I was reporting on Dante Rock and now my viewpoint was more than a little biased. It wasn’t like any news was neutral, but still, I had standards. The other option was just completely breaking it off with him, and that would have been hard considering we had the rest of the season to be around each other.
Just because we had done it twice already didn’t mean we had to keep doing it. We were most likely going to, but that was just because we wanted to, not because we felt we had to. A thousand questions were running through my head.
There was no way this would happen under other circumstances. There was no way that Dante Rock, even if we had met in a regular social setting, much like the ones in which he was used to normally meeting women, would have taken an interest in me. I had seen some of the women when he had been photographed with them. They were exactly the type of girl that you thought would look for a guy like him, and exactly the type that a guy like him would look for.
They were generally the model type. Sometimes there was a socialite here and there, and other times a girl famous for being pretty on the internet, but they all had that look. First, they were all tall, never as tall as him, of course, but they were tall. Then, they were skinny. They had the bodies that every other woman on earth was taught to want and to strive for.
I had never been skinny in my life and I wasn’t going to start trying to be. If that was what Dante really wanted, then he could go back to that as soon as the season was over and I was done with him. I hated to think that he was using me for sex because I had effectively robbed him of all the ways he would be able to get it. I was the only woman available so maybe that was really just it.
Any port in a storm, and all that.
Couldn’t the same be said about me though?
There he was, Dante Rock. He was a man who would be unavailable to me sexually in any other situation. Since I had basically driven him to desperation, I was the one who he had to choose. He didn’t have any other choice. The lions in the zoo would prefer to kill and eat their prey, but since sides of beef were all that was available to them, they made do.
For the time that I had him in this position, he was basically mine to do with what I wanted… and fuck it, I was going to.
The performance he had given in the locker room hadn’t been a fluke. The man was just as good—if not better—this second time around. Hm. He was definitely better. This time, he had used his tongue, and I had nearly lost my mind.
I would go back just for that. Even if he hadn’t won a championship, his pussy-eating skills were championship level. He ate pussy the way he played basketball, better than most people I had ever had the pleasure of watching. We had done it without a rubber, again. I wasn’t even going to try and get him to use one. The fact that his cock was completely bare when he fucked me just made it hotter.
This time at the club made it the second time that we had had sex somewhere we technically were not allowed to. It was the second time that we had done it in public where literally anyone could have walked in on us. Was it always going to be like that? We weren’t dating. He wasn’t inviting me to his house, and I wasn’t inviting him to mine. The places we were meeting weren’t exactly social, and they definitely weren’t intimate.
Would we end up fucking under a table one day? Were we just going to keep doing it in plain sight? Was it greedy for me to want, maybe, just a bed? I didn’t want romance or anything; I knew where to look for that. I just wanted something more comfortable, where I didn’t have to listen to the sounds of other people and where I didn’t have to worry about a picture or tape being leaked and ruining my career. I also wanted to see Dante naked. All the way naked. I had seen all the important parts already, and the entire world had seen him without his shirt on, but I didn’t like having sex with my clothes on.
I wasn’t hungry but thought it was maybe smart to try and eat something, definitely, have some water at least. I wasn’t drunk, but I didn’t want to take any chances and wake up feeling like shit. It was late, and I didn’t want to cook. I didn’t want to try and order food in either. I settled for some crackers I had in the pantry and some hummus I had in the fridge, which I had bought on sale. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. All those stupid rules where you couldn’t eat once the sun went down were so dumb. All that shit about “When you’re hungry, don’t eat.” Really, what kind of advice was that?
I went wearily through my night time routine because there was no good reason to fall asleep in your makeup. Not unless you were dead. I made my way to the shower and tied my hair up so it didn’t get wet. It was messy, but I could just curl it in the morning. I didn’t want to wash it. Undressing, I found that I didn’t have my underwear on, again. Dante had taken that pair as well. Was he starting a collection? What did he do with them? Maybe when we were together I could just skip on them completely, make things easier for both of us.
The hot water was soothing on my skin. I couldn’t wait to get to bed. Dante didn’t have a normal nine to five, which was why he could afford to hit the clubs so often. Dante. I closed my eyes and I could feel him on my skin again. I could feel his hard body behind me, and I could feel his hands working me into a frenzy. I could feel his breath on my ear and hear him.
“Mine,” he had said. He said I was his. I had said it, too. He had said that the next time another man touched me, I would think of him. I was already thinking of him and it had barely been an hour since we had been together. I felt my hands go to my nipples and squeeze. I wished it was Dante’s lips I felt there and not my own hands. I wanted to feel him all over me. I wanted him to possess me, really make me his.
My hands slipped between my thighs and I rubbed my swollen clit. Just like that, I was on fire for him again. I couldn’t rub myself the way he had. My fingers would never feel as big and thick inside me as his did. They sure as hell wouldn’t feel as hard and hot as his cock did. I wanted him. I wanted him again and again until I couldn’t talk or move…until I could still feel where he had been the next day. I came against my own hand, slumping against the shower wall. My mind was swimming with thoughts of him, what I would do if he was with me, what I would let him do to me. Thinking about him was harmless, as long as it didn’t end up getting in the way of important business. The man, whether I wanted him to be or not, was under my skin.
I got out of the shower and put my pajamas on. Usually, I would turn the television on because I didn’t like to fall asleep to silence, but I was tired enough tonight that I likely wouldn’t need any help getting to sleep. I settled under the covers and made sure my alarm was set for the next morning. I noticed an unread text message. It must have come through when we were at the club.
It was from Daniel.
It was an image. At first glance, it was a couple of people in a restaurant or a bar or club sitting together. One was a man and one was a woman. They were very close together like they were trying to talk to each other over the loud music. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks.
The cream-colored top I had worn and the dark skirt. Dante’s blonde hair. The lights and décor from the club we had been at… it was us. Someone had taken a picture of us, and now Daniel had it. My fatigue evaporated immediately. I hurried to call Daniel, not realizing that it was likely way too late to expect him to pick up. I shut my eyes, willing him to do it. I had to explain myself.
What was he thinking? His thought was likely spot on. It looked like the people in the picture were cozying up to each other, and that was exactly what was happening. He probably thought that I hadn’t listened to him when he warned me about Dante, and that was also true. I hoped he didn’t think that I had been hiding this from him, even though that was true as well. Would he take me off the assignment?
He finally picked up.
“Hello?” he said. I couldn’t tell from his voice whether I had woken him up or not.
“Daniel—”
“Were you too busy with Dante to get back to me earlier?” he asked. I felt myself turn red.
“Daniel, it isn’t what you think.”
“Where are you right now?”
“I’m at home.”
There was a pause.
“Whose home?” he asked. I was mortified. Could this be any more embarrassing? Whose home? I knew what he was insinuating, and it made me sick to think about.
“My home.”
“Is he there with you?
“No, why would you ask me something like that?”
“So I was wrong? That wasn’t you and Dante Rock practically on top of each other at a club?”
“We were there together, but it wasn’t what you think.”
“Oh, this will be rich. What was it? What do you think I thought it was?”
“It was loud in there. He had to lean in close to be able to talk to me.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced.
“I asked him not to go around doing all the shit he usually does for the rest of the season because of the series I’m doing on him. He wanted to go out, and the condition was that I be there with him. Nothing happened and nothing is going on.”
“So you are trying to tell me that the two of you went to a club, he got you guys Ace of Spades champagne and you talked about the weather?”
“We were talking about his past. He was telling me about where he grew up and what it was like living there with a single mom and a little sister.”
“Sounds riveting,” he said.
“I’m serious, Daniel. It might not have looked like it, but we weren’t fooling around.” Lies. All lies. I was lying so hard; I had never lied so much.
“I don’t know what sort of unorthodox interview methods you think you are allowed to employ, but you have to remember that this is a job.”
“I know that.”
“What did I tell you about Rock?”
I rolled my eyes. His warning… I couldn’t even pretend that I hadn’t heard it because I had. It had come too late. He might have thought that he was protecting me, but telling me that Dante would try and seduce me when he did tell me wasn’t news. He didn’t know how right he had been and how late he was with his well-intentioned warning.
“Daniel. I don’t know who sent you the picture, but they didn’t see what they thought they saw. He and I were talking. He ordered the champagne because that club isn’t the sort of place you can just go in and sit doing nothing.”
“I don’t know. You two look pretty comfortable to me.”
Daniel and I looked at our job pretty differently. The fact was, there was money to be made. Of course, there was money to be made. Why did anyone do any job ever? Professional sports were and names like Dante Rock moved units. Yes, people wanted to know about games and about scores but scandal sold. Sex sold, and I knew that that was what Daniel was thinking. He was probably mad or worried or maybe a little anxious about me getting mixed up with Dante because of all the things he had warned me about, but he was a businessman, and I knew he wasn’t mad about the potential this had to sell stories.
“I’m smarter than that Daniel. There is nothing going on. Sorry to break it to you. The picture means nothing.”