Chapter Four
Blake
When I picked Chloe up, she’d looked stunning in a slinky, sparkly black dress that made it impossible to ignore her luscious curves. My cock had pulsed behind my dress pants. He certainly approved. Her blonde hair hung loose down past her shoulders, framing her face and I itched to run my fingers through it. I had no idea how she made it look so wavy and perfect. I pictured myself fucking her from behind while I grabbed a good fist full of it. That train of thought was getting me nowhere, although my cock didn’t seem to mind.
“Time to go to work,” she’d said, distracting me from my thoughts of fucking her.
Walking beside me to the car, I’d noticed she was taller than most women, but she only came up to my nose, even in heels. A girl with long, slender legs always made my dick hard, and she was no exception.
My heart had begun to race and I felt a rush of heat spread over my body that I wasn’t used to having when I was with other women. From what I’d seen of Chloe, she was a spitfire, and I loved the challenge.
Desire had bubbled up inside me as she moved like caramel to get into my sports car. I caught a glimpse of her creamy thighs as she settled down in the seat and had to wonder how soft they’d feel against my lips. I gulped as I suppressed a feeling of longing that overcame me. I wanted her in my bed, her taste on my tongue.
When we were seated at the restaurant, Johnny, the owner, came to our table. I introduced Chloe and he gave her a big smile. “This is my girlfriend,” I told him. “Hands off.”
His stunned expression said it all. “Girlfriend? As in a girl you can be serious about for more than one night?”
“Looks like,” I said. Shit. Why did I feel like such an asshole by his question? And in front of Chloe. She knew I was a man whore, but having Johnny point it out?
He smiled at me. “Keep an eye on this one, sweetheart. You have a real challenge on your hands.”
The fucker. It was one thing to have a new girl on my arm every night, it was another for Johnny to make me look like such a dick. I didn’t make any promises to any of the women I fucked and was careful to extricate myself before moving on to the next. They knew the score.
I held up a hand. I felt like I needed to explain myself to Chloe, as if I wanted to impress her even if it was all pretend. “This is different, Johnny.”
Johnny looked stunned for a moment, then nodded as if he’d heard it all before. As if he didn’t believe me. “Like I said, Chloe, good luck with this one.” He winked and, thank fuck, walked away.
“He’s a hard sell,” I told her. Beneath the soft lights of the restaurant, she looked even more beautiful. Full lips, high cheekbones, pale blue eyes. But she had something most of the other women I’d been with didn’t. Brains. She was attractive and smart.
“You don’t have the kind of track record that inspires confidence. Don’t worry, I know the score.”
For once, I felt a little ashamed of my history with women. I wanted Chloe to like me. Hell, for some reason I wanted her to respect me.
“That’s why you’re going to have to play it totally straight until people actually believe that you believe it yourself. I don’t think it will be easy for you.”
She was right. Unless I seriously wooed Chloe Hansen this plan didn’t bode well, but if I wanted Tommy to renew my contract I had to play the game. Hockey was the most important thing in the world. The reality was that I could chase pussy or play hockey but not do both.
It was a hell of a choice. She represented the corporate bigwigs and I hated the idea that she might understand my weakness for women. No, she knew it, especially after Johnny’s little visit.
I brushed her concern off. “Don’t worry about me. You might not know me or believe what you’ve read about me, but I’ll play my part.” I felt like I needed to keep up my edge, my tough exterior. I wasn’t ready to have any woman, no matter who they were, breaking down my walls.
She studied me for a minute. “All right. I’ll believe you. Besides, I’ve got three months to find out for myself. But this isn’t a joke. Once the word is out that you’re seeing me, especially after our engagement, the press will be watching us both like hawks. I’m an unknown, and it won’t be as intense for me, but they’ll be expecting you to backslide. You’ll see reporters lurking, waiting to catch you with another woman. No matter how smart you think you are, you can’t sneak around and get away with it.”
“Despite what you think, I’ve never cheated on a woman,” I emphasized the words clear and slow. “And losing the chance to play hockey isn’t worth the risk of shagging some bimbo,” I said.
“And it was before now?” she asked.
Good point.
I shrugged. “I’m reformed, remember?”
“Good, but you better be prepared for some of these reporters to try setting you up.” She took a sip of her wine.
I frowned. “Set me up how?”
“Any number of ways.” She ran her finger over the rim of her glass and I watched the motion. My cock twitched, eager for the same motion over the crown. Good thing I was sitting down. I wouldn’t be able to hide my hard-on.
“They might pay a woman to try and get you to cheat on me and when you do…well, if that happens your career is going down the tubes.”
Shit. She was right. It may have been the first thing we truly agreed on.
“Game day is the worst,” I told her.
She arched one tapered brow. “Why?”
“That’s when the women are all over us—the players. They swarm when we leave the security area and go out to the parking garage. They’re after autographs, but many want a hot night and the press know it.”
Games always got me worked up, and the rougher the game…well, Winnipeg played as hard as we did and that was great for me and the fans. But afterward, I’d want to get laid because the rush hadn’t worn off. I’d gotten used to having lots of women around who wanted to oblige and game day was easy pickings. I kept condoms in my locker so I could stuff some in my pocket when I left. I always knew they’d be waiting outside for the team. Some would stuff a phone number in my hand or in my pocket. Many would rub their bodies against me and make wonderful, filthy suggestions. Giving one of them a call from my car and telling her where to meet me was never a problem.
Some were trouble though.
A few weeks back there’d been a curvy brunette with shoulder-length hair and lush, sensuous lips who’d walked beside me all the way to my car, whispering in my ear that she’d do whatever I wanted right there in the parking garage. I might be a little wild, but I didn’t do public fucking, so we’d gone to a party. A wild party the cops busted.
Turned out, the groupie was holding drugs. She’d wanted to go to the party to deal. She got busted and the lot of us were taken downtown to give a statement. I wasn’t charged with anything, but the press got word I’d arrived with the drug-dealing brunette and by reading the tabloids you’d think I’d been convicted of dealing.
That was when I’d learned that the people who signed the checks were more concerned about my image than I’d ever been. That was why they brought in Chloe to act as my keeper.
For tonight, for the next few weeks anyway, that meant being out with her.
“I’ll attend every game,” she said. “I’ll have security let me in to meet you when you come out of the locker room. I’ll be with you when you walk to your car. In fact, you won’t drive. I’m arranging transportation from now on.”
I sighed. That would work…unfortunately. I’d have to pretend that I was going to score with my fiancée, but in truth, there was a chance I’d have blue balls for three months.
Still, I could I let my eyes wander over Chloe’s body without harm, and I did now. I tried to snap out of it. I didn’t want to appear like I was daydreaming or picturing her naked. I was, but Chloe didn’t need to know that. I couldn’t get a handle on her yet. I didn’t know her hot buttons, but the reality of what I’d agreed to do was sinking in. I couldn’t imagine not playing for the Blizzards, not having my contract renewed. Tom knew I’d do anything to make that happen. But I hated that Chloe was running the show and had me by the balls.
All eyes would be on me and I didn’t have any leeway to screw up. This was my one chance not to fuck it up. I’d gotten myself into this mess and I had to do as Chloe said to get myself out of it. The thought made me sweat. I had so much riding on whether this worked. I just hoped Chloe knew what she was doing. She claimed to be the best at her trade, and I was ready to see her in action.
While I was tense throughout dinner, she acted totally at ease. I just had to wait and vent my frustrations and pound my aggressions out on other people. On the ice. It was one of the only jobs where that type of behavior was actually acceptable. That paid me the big bucks.
We were interrupted a couple of times during dinner, first by Randall, a teammate who wanted to meet Chloe. Randall played right wing. He was good, but I couldn’t say I liked him. Even more, I didn’t like the way he looked at Chloe, like he thought she was completely fuckable and wasting her time on me.
“You’re out of your league, Blake,” Randall, whispered as he left. “You should hand off the play.”
“Fuck off,” I replied. My blood boiled but I bit my tongue and kept my cool, even though it was eating me alive to do so.
Chloe heard him. That knowing smile was back on her pretty face. I watched the glow of her blue eyes and saw that she met my gaze levelly. Her self-confidence made her even hotter and I looked her over again, letting my eyes savor the curves of the bare tops of her breasts that her low-cut dress showed teasingly. Fortunately, I knew Randall wouldn’t have a shot with Chloe since she was busy being my fiancée for the next three months. My cock pulsed knowing no one else would have her.
Next over was Bert Walker, who wrote a column for the Chronicle. He was a sports writer, but he mostly wrote gossip. He liked to cover the scene, writing about contracts and business shit. That was his excuse for coming by, but there was going to be a piece about my date in the next edition instead, I was sure. “So, I guess Tom isn’t thrilled about your recent publicity,” he said, not even introducing himself. I had to do it for him. The dude had never been good with subtlety.
“He’s over the moon about it. It’s attention, Bert.”
“Nothing he can sell in this market, Blake. It’s a new age, era of the corporate, polished superstar, wouldn’t you say, Ms. Hansen?”
She smiled. “Mr. Walker, most women will always have a thing for bad boys, even if it’s fantasy. Advertisers know that. It might not sell four-wheel drive pickups, but if they want to get to the soccer moms they can’t ignore it.”
He laughed. “Point taken, Ms. Hansen, point taken.” And then, having learned what he wanted to know, or just gotten some quote he could use, he left us.
“Tomorrow’s story will be about how the hot PR lady likes bad boys,” I told her.
She cocked her head and gave me an amused smile. “That fits our storyline nicely, doesn’t it? This dinner is working rather well.”
I watched the rise and fall of those lovely breasts. I wanted to cup them, test their weight, watch as her nipples hardened beneath my thumbs. Suck on them until they were cherry red and she was close to coming.
I cleared my throat. “So, what happens after dinner?”
“Besides dessert?”
Was she insinuating something? Was that a hint? This girl was fucking with me for sure. I raised an eyebrow at her.
Chloe looked like a decadent, expensive and delicious dessert and I found myself imagining easing that dress down, baring her breasts and letting the slinky dress fall to the floor, leaving her in just her panties and sky high heels. If I got her into bed, so worked up she was begging me to fuck her, maybe I could keep my sanity. It might work out, letting the world think she was leading me around by the nose for a while if I was running things behind closed doors.
She tipped her head. “After dinner you take me home.”
I looked at her mouth. Her lips were curled into a cool poise of a half smile, half smirk. Her face was more relaxed than it had been in the office, more sensual.
“I should go in,” I agreed. “If we’re supposed to be a couple, I wouldn’t just drop you off.”
“You wouldn’t?” she teased.
“Here we are, in love…damn right I’d go in.” I put my forearms on the table, leaned in. “Like you said, you never know if the press will be watching.”
“They won’t see much through closed blinds.” Ah, she wasn’t into public sex. That was fine with me. When I got her naked, I didn’t want anyone else to see her. Her body, her cries of desire, would be mine.
“They’ll see me go in.” I shrugged. “If I announced an engagement to a girl they thought I hadn’t even slept with…well, we’d be better off trying to convince them I’d gotten religion overnight.”
No matter what she did, she couldn’t erase my past.
“That’s true,” she said.
She didn’t seem to mind me looking her over or having me in her apartment and I wondered if that was what she had in mind. She was killer smart, but this was a job to her. I was a job. Not a one-night-stand. Or a three-month-fling.
“Meeting Randall and the writer was an excellent start. We’ve established ourselves as a couple and we need to keep it up from now on.”
I wanted to tell her the thought that popped into my head: Around this woman my cock would always be up.
“So, when we get to my place, you’ll come in with me. You should stay a while, probably leave in the early morning.”
She wasn’t the kind who fucked on the first date. That was obvious. But we had three months. I sipped my wine and wondered if she had some kind of wild streak she kept hidden, maybe I could bring it out into the open once we got to know each other better. She couldn’t be an ice queen, not with that body, not with that self-confident smile. All I needed to do was find the key that unlocked her, got me between those luscious thighs. That would at least give me something to do, some kind of desirable goal to chase until the damn contracts were signed.