Baller: A Bad Boy Romance (8 page)

“It’s just what? This is a safe space, Dante. I know I’m a reporter, but I don’t want to say anything that isn’t true. I would never use anything you say to me against you.”

He looked at me.

“My dad… my father, for most of the time that I knew him before he finally walked out on us, used to beat my mom,” he said.

I felt all the air get sucked out of the room. For a second, I had no idea what to say to that. What did you say to that?

“Did he ever hurt
you
?”

“No. She never let him.”

“When did it start?”

“My sister was just a baby. She was like…two, and I was six. It went on until I was twelve.” I knew he had a sister. There weren’t stories on her the way there were about him, but there were some pictures because they had been photographed together. She was beautiful. They had the same light features. Her name was Gabrielle Rock, and if she was two when he was six, then she was the same age as I was.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”

“He used to yell at her. He used to call her a whore and a slut, and I never knew what those words meant at the time, but I knew they
weren’t
good. Gabbie would cry and I would hold her and tell her to keep her hands over her ears so she didn’t hear the thumping and screaming.”

Thumping and screaming
. I cringed, as I imagined hearing that.

“Was he ever charged with domestic abuse?”

“No.
Never
. I didn’t see him for years, but he came out of the woodwork when I started in the league, demanding money for all the trouble I apparently caused him when I was a kid. I give it to him because I know he isn't above coming after my mom again, or Gabbie.”

“He sounds like a monster.”

“He was. He
is
. It took mom years to get over what he did to her for all those years. Me and Gabbie, we were scared shitless of him. We couldn't do anything, if it wasn’t his threats that scared us, it was the fact that mom worked so hard to keep him away from us.”

“You were just kids. It doesn't matter if he never touched you…he abused you, too.”

“The way my mom used to cry, the way she would scream when he would hit her… I would never hurt a woman.
Never
. Not after seeing what happened to my mom when my dad was done with her. I would rather have both my fucking hands cut off than use them to hurt a female.” His voice was hard. His words came like he was talking through gritted teeth. He didn’t do anything to that woman. I believed him, but hearing the reason why made goosebumps rise all over my skin.

“Is she… is your mother still alive?”

“She lives in Calabasas. I bought her a place there. She’s fine now. He’s not coming near her again.”

“You still have her; that’s all that matters.”

“We came so close to losing her.
Too
fucking close. She was so fucked up after he left, she got into a relationship with a dealer and started abusing drugs. I can't tell you how many times I found her passed out on the couch and thought that was it. He used to…” He paused and took a deep breath. “Before he left, my dad, he used to do this thing, I only saw it once, but he would knock my mom down onto the floor and he would grab a handful of her hair. She would scream because it hurt but he would… he would kick her until the only thing left in his hand was a handful of her hair.”

His voice cracked as he said “hair.” His face was stony still, but his eyes were shiny like he might cry. I reached for him, almost as an automatic response. His hands were on his lap, and he had them balled into fists. I covered one gently with my own, urging him to unclench and let me hold it. His hand was large, but the grip he eventually had on mine was gentle. He looked at me. We were sitting very close together. Extremely close.

“I’m so sorry you had to see your mother go through any of that. I can't imagine how hard it was. No child deserves to go through that fear and terror.” I used my other hand to gently brush his cheek. The skin was stubbly under my thumb.  He was a child from an abusive household. I had never heard any reports of that, not once. All that was public knowledge was the fact that they had grown up pretty working class in Ohio, him, his sister, and his mom, but I didn’t know all this. The public reports surrounding his parents—(there weren’t many)—were that his mom and dad had split up and she had kept the kids. It was his story and his dark past, but hearing him tell it, I felt cold. I felt this urge to…I don’t know…hug him, or something.

“I don’t like someone wrongly accusing me of assault,” he said.

I felt horrible for ever thinking that he had done that…for even contemplating the possibility and threatening him. He had done nothing wrong. She, the woman who had been at the basketball center, really was in the wrong. She was falsely accusing a man who was totally innocent. I felt anger all of a sudden. I felt angry at that woman for making those wild and reckless claims.

Did she know that if enough people believed her, Dante would be ruined? She probably did. My mind raced. What if this was some sort of inside job and someone or a group of people was on a campaign to take down Dante Rock? I swallowed, thinking that I had threatened to be one of those people if he lied to me.

He hadn’t lied to me. He had told me something that—whether or not he admitted it—had been hard for him to tell. I felt honored to be the one to whom he felt safe opening up. I marveled at the man in front of me, who had just poured his soul out to me. My thumb ghosted over his lips. He parted them as it did. I felt his hand leave my grasp and close around my thigh…near the knee. He pushed my skirt up a little, so he was touching my bare skin.

“I understand. You shouldn't take the fall for something you didn’t do.”

His hand was kneading my thigh, making it a little hard to think.

“Thank you,” he said.

He leaned slowly into me.

“You’re welcome,” I whispered, realizing what was happening.

I sat rooted to the spot as he leaned into me. He held my face in his hands and our lips touched. It was gentle at first, and I thought that was it, but then he continued. I felt his lips part and his tongue run along my lower lip.

This was wrong.

This was so wrong, but I didn’t want it to stop. I parted my lips and allowed his tongue entrance into my mouth. How many rules did this break? How many ethical codes was I violating? I was a journalist. I was a reporter—and I was letting my subject stick his tongue down my throat. I was sticking my own tongue down his throat.

His large, callused hand gripped the back of my neck. The way his lips moved over mine…and the way his tongue felt… who had ever brought me to my knees like this with just a kiss? I put a hand on his chest and gently pushed him away from me.

We couldn’t do this. It was not professional. It was a conflict of interest. My career was potentially on the line. How could I expect anyone to believe anything I said when I was out here fucking the guy that I am reporting on? No.
Lord no
. We couldn’t have sex.

Dante wasn’t the kind of man whom I needed to be having sex with. He was an athlete and he lived like a rock star. He didn’t seem like the sort of guy who had sex with women twice. This was a terrible idea. I didn’t want anything out of it, but I didn’t need to get involved in the first place.

My hand was on his chest, but he hadn’t stopped kissing me. He had just turned his attention to my neck, sucking and biting. He had fine, soft hairs—not that much and not that dense—covering his chest.

“Dante…
Dante
?” I said.

“What is it?” he said between kisses on my neck.

“Dante, we can’t do this.”

“Mm-hmm,” he said. “You're a reporter. That would be like, using your position over me for power or something,” he mumbled. He didn’t stop. I felt his teeth nibble my ear and my eyes fluttered shut.

“Dante, I want you to stop,” I said definitively. My voice was shaking and my hand had been absently feeling the grooves of his abs. Under my skirt, my lips felt slick with moisture, already. I knew that if I looked down, my nipples would be hard, pressing against the fabric of my blouse. He raised his head to look at me.

“If that’s really what you want,” he said gently. I looked at his face. He was so handsome. Everyone knew that. Everyone could see that. It was obvious, but this was new. Dante being vulnerable and honest, talking about something that happened to him, was more attractive than all the flirting he had done in my direction since we had met, but it also just made him a real person.

Who was
this
guy? I
liked
this guy who was honest and who could talk about things even when they hurt. More than anything I wanted to kiss him. It was a bad idea, but I couldn’t just leave. Not then. I leaned forward and kissed him gently. He immediately took the lead, invading my mouth.

It was a bad idea and it was a mistake, but I was one I was ready and willing to make. I let my hand sink into his crotch and feel him growing through his shorts. We were in the locker room. There was no way we could have gotten completely naked. I heard his groan as my hand felt him through the fabric.

“Take it out,” he said to me.

I looked up and saw him looking down at me. I bit my lip and looked down again, easing my hand down into his shorts and feeling his dick. The skin was pulled tight over the shaft because he was hard. It was hot and hard under my fingers. His penis was… it matched the rest of him. He was long and felt thick in my hand. I felt my pussy ache thinking about how thick he would feel when he thrust it into me. He groaned some more as my hand stroked the head in slow circular motions with my fingertips.

“Do you have protection?” I asked him. I saw his brow furrow a little, he didn’t.

“I won’t come inside,” he said.

As if I didn’t already have enough reason to get out of there as fast as I could. We had started with an already bad idea, and it had just gotten a lot worse. He didn’t have any protection. I knew what my status was, but there was no way of knowing with him. His dick was in my hand, and I had never in my life wanted to please a man more. I wanted to suck his cock into my mouth and make him forget his name.

It was a bad idea, but it was also an opportunity I couldn’t be sure that I would ever have again. I wanted this man, my body was aching for him, and he wanted me, too. There was time for regret later.

“Where do you want me?” I asked him. I suddenly remembered the voice recorder and quickly turned it off.

He stood up suddenly. He towered over me. I was over six feet tall when I was in my heels, but he could still see the top of my head.

“Lift that skirt up. It’s in the way. If I rip it, you won't be able to get out of here.”

I followed his instructions, bending down and slowly lifting my skirt up over my thighs and hips. He watched me silently. I felt my pulse speed up, seeing him roughly run his hands over his cock, impatiently rubbing himself off as I exposed my thighs and panties to him. He smirked while looking down at me. He could probably see how wet he had made me.

“Take those off,” he said. I didn’t object. I pulled them off and slipped them over my feet. Bent down his dick was nearly was at nearly eye level. The sex appeal this guy had was suffocating. I couldn’t resist leaning forward and planting a kiss on the tip of his dick. I could taste his salty precum. I used my tongue to tease his head without giving him the satisfaction of sticking it all the way in my mouth.

He made sounds like he was almost in pain. He pulled me up roughly and grabbed my panties out of my hand. He took them from me, tossing them in his open locker. Grabbing my leg and hitching it up around his hip, he roughly kissed me again. The first contact his dick made with my soaking wet folds was almost electric. My own juices covered the thick head of his cock, Dante rubbing his member up and down my slit.