Balls: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (A Cruz Boys Novel Book 1) (8 page)

“I can’t believe I’m actually here!” she shouted, though it was still barely intelligible. “Megan and I have waited for hours, days, and struck out every time!”

She squealed in delight.

Her excitement sent a throbbing pulse through my shaft. The engorged head of my cock chafed against silk boxer briefs.

I wanted to make her squeal, over and over. Until the squeals turned desperate. Until she came undone. In my mouth. On my dick.

I wrapped my arm around her and slid my hand down to her butt. It fit perfectly in my hand.

She apparently didn’t think so because she pulled it up to the small of her back.

We could start there.

A short girl with big balloon afro ponytails bopped out of the mass of people.

“Leo,” she shouted with a grin.

I wrapped her in a big hug and then let go.

“Alex, this is DJ Pussycat. The best damn DJ in the universe!”

Pussycat gave her a hug and I heard her yell, “Leo got me my first gig here when I couldn’t get a return email. He’s why I’m living the dream today.”

Alex glanced at me.

I waved off her words. “Bullshit. She’s at the top because she’s that good. Pure and simple.”

“Nice to meet you, Alex.” She turned to both of us. “Stick around! I’ve got a set coming up later.”

“We wouldn’t miss it!” I shouted back.

She dissolved back into the crowd and I turned to see Alex with a puzzled look on her face.

“What?” I asked.

“Just when I think I have you figured out, I don’t.”

“That’s good, right?”

Someone that might’ve been a manager I’d met before parted through the crowd like a salmon swimming upstream. He was a smooth-looking guy. Too smooth. Smarmy smooth. Kiss-ass, backstabber style.

I hated those types.

He smiled broadly and clapped me on the shoulder like we were old friends. He said something to open the conversation and I ignored him because I didn’t give a shit.

He threw up his hands and gestured for us to follow. We wound our way through a packed crowd of beautiful people. These were the elite of not only Barcelona but Europe as well. Every movement and gesture was a studied advertisement of their personal success and glory.

And next to Alex, it was like they were broadcasting in black and white. A monochromatic mass of utterly ignorable bags of misplaced ego. Her brilliant light cast them all into darkness.

We went through an interior door guarded by an enormous guy and I passed him a hundred note the same as the guy outside. We arrived at our personal suite, an enclosed balcony above the massive dance floor. Out at the railing, you were right in the middle of it, sharing the sound with everyone else. But further back in the room, there was plenty of space for your own private rhythms.

The too-attentive manager made sure the ultra-modern table and chairs were in perfect order and then retreated to the doorway. Here in this quieter area, it appeared he wanted to continue our conversation.

Did he think we were fucking pen pals?

I shooed him out without so much as a glance of reciprocated connection. Screw him. The guy probably shit on every single employee he pretended to own.

I never liked his type. Never.

Not then, when they had the power.

And not now, when I did.

With Alex’s hand in mine, I pulled her to the railing. I stepped behind and came up close, the aching hardness in my pants grazing the thin fabric stretched over her round backside. Every touch sent a shock through my groin, tensing my balls up and clenching my abs.

“Have I mentioned how amazing you look tonight?”

She turned her head, a sexy smile my reward.

“You have, but I don’t mind if you feel the need to repeat yourself.”

I picked up the two neon-blue drinks on the table and passed one to her.

“What is it?”

I nudged her glass. “Trust me.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“What do you have to lose?”

She flashed an arched brow. “How about my career, my life, and my future?”

“You worry too much.”

“And you worry too little.”

I took a sip of mine and savored the sweet bite. It was a drink that had no name. Rather, it had my name because it was made specially for me by the bartender here.

“We’re on a date,” I said. “Let the world see we’re enjoying it.”

I waved at the crowded dance floor below. Already, quite a few adoring faces were turned up watching our every move.

Alex seemed to consider and then nodded.
 

“A toast then,” she said. “To the best fake date I’ve ever been on.”

I tinged my glass to hers.

“To me,” I said, baiting the hook.

Her expression darkened.

“The luckiest guy in the world.”

We each tipped back our glasses and, judging by how she drained half of hers without taking a breath, I’d say she liked it.

Or maybe needed it.

We spent the next several hours talking, laughing, and nibbling on gourmet tapas. She was so easy to talk to. She sipped the rest of her first drink and declined a second. I never drank more than one because the payback the next day at practice wasn’t worth it.

We finished the last dish and kicked back on the couch. My sides hurt from laughing so much. But one thing had me laughing harder than the rest.
 

Because it was so improbable.

“Be serious,” I said. “You don’t know how to ride a bike?”

Alex nodded. “Yep.”

“How can that possibly be? Everyone knows how to ride a bike.”

“I guess I’m that special,” she said.

“I never doubted that. I’m going to put this out there and I don’t want it to sound like a judgement.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said with a crinkle of her nose.

“No adult on the planet should not know how to ride a bike. It’s like swimming. You know how to swim, right?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Love it. And yes, that sounded judgy. I always planned to learn how, but I never got to the doing part.”

“We’re going to have change that.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve managed pretty well without knowing how so far.”

I breathed in her scent. I touched my lips gently to her neck and up to her ear.

“You’d love the thrill. The exertion. Your legs wrapped tightly around each side and riding hard into the night.”

I stroked the inside of her arm and breathed into her ear. A shiver cascaded down her back.

“Are we talking about bikes here?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Are we?”

The beat of the music began to change and the crowd roared. DJ Pussycat was stepping in for her set. It was the whole reason we were here.
 

Aside from the shivering deity at my side.

“May I have this dance?”

Alex stared at me, an odd mix of amusement and skepticism on her face.

“You know, you can be quite the charmer when you’re not being a schmuck.”

“I’m the total package,” I said with a wink.

I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the railing, a spot where we could be closer to the music, closer to each other. And the spot where I could push forward and she couldn’t escape.

The rhythm got faster, more urgent. And the bass got deeper, dirtier. A throaty grit that bypassed the filters in your brain and stoked the fires in your soul.

Our bodies started to move. At first, apart and following our own rhythms.

Her hips swayed and pulled at me like a tidal moon. She moved with a sultry grace, in that natural, unselfconscious way that everyone wishes they could.

She was a goddess, one deserving my praise and devotion.

I leaned my waist forward and, for the first time, she didn’t shy away. Her firm cheeks pressed into me. My cock strained so hard I thought it was about to explode. If a doctor could’ve measured my blood pressure on my shaft and on my arm, it would’ve said I was dead either way. The arm from a flatline response and the shaft from hypertension.

I slid my hands forward over her hips and wrapped one over her tight stomach. I pulled her into me and heard a gasp as the length of my shaft flattened on her backside.

Something inside me sparked. A spark I hadn’t felt before. It somehow felt deeper, more substantial, than anything I’d experienced before.

She turned her head and yelled to be heard.

“I saw some flashes going off down below. The public is eating this up. We’ll be all over social media tomorrow.”

Was this a show for her?

Because everything inside me screamed that this was the most real thing I’d ever done.

“Let’s give them something to talk about,” I said.

I leaned over and kissed her neck. I ran my tongue up to her little fleshy earlobe and nipped it with as gentle a bite as I could manage.

Her butt ground into my crotch.

It took every ounce of self-control I had not to tear her dress off and sink myself between her supple thighs.

My hand on her belly dropped a little lower, and I pulled her closer. The muscles in my arms went rigid as I fought the impulse to crush her into me.

I spun her around and pulled her close, my precarious hold on restraint melting away.

I needed her. Like a drug.

Like the cure.

I lowered my head and kissed her lips, tasted the sweet salt of my favorite drink.

My new favorite drink.

Alex.

My tongue glided across her lower lip and then slipped inside her mouth. After the slightest hint of hesitation, her lips parted and invited me in. Sparks blazed in my groin and others blazed in my brain.

After what could’ve been seconds or hours, she pulled back and met my gaze. Her chest rose and fell in quick succession. She swallowed hard and licked her lips where mine had just been. Her eyes burned with a hot current.
 

My body burned in her reflection.

“I need you, Alex. I don’t know what it is about you. But it’s got me twisted up like you wouldn’t believe.”

She smiled coyly, a sweet mix of innocence and exposed heat.

“Are you saying you like me?”

“I don’t
like
you. I
need
you. I can live without perfume. I can’t live without air. “

“Are you saying you don’t like my perfume?” she asked with a teasing voice.

She didn’t have to
try
to tease me. Her nearness
was
a tease. The thin patches of fabric that separated us were a tease.

I buried my face in her hair and breathed in. The sweet smell was more intoxicating than everything the bartender had to offer, combined.

I never believed in the idea of being controlled by pheromones, those invisible signals that were supposed to rule our unconscious decisions. I never believed it before, that is. But maybe that was because I’d never met my chemical match. The girl whose unique combination of attributes fit like the final piece of my puzzle.

“You smell wonderful,” I said. “I never want to smell anything else.”

She looked down and I wondered if I’d said something wrong.

“What is it?” I lifted her chin and reconnected with the depths of her soul through the sparkling stained-glass windows of her eyes.

“I’m not wearing any perfume.”

I dropped my mouth to hers and again tasted her lips and tongue.

A crash from behind us ended the infinite kiss too soon.

Some guy had barged in and that smarmy manager was trying to shepherd him back out again.

Alexis gasped. “Robert!”

The intruder waved. “Hi, honey.”

She grimaced in disgust. “Robert, what do you want?”

I waved the manager off and decided to find out what the hell was going on myself.

Alexis marched over and stood facing Robert with her hands on her hips. Those hips that a moment ago were sexy-as-sin were now squared-up and pissed-off.

Who was this jerk?

I walked up behind her, hoping he’d give me a reason to respond.

“Why are you here?” Alexis asked him.

“I could ask you the same thing. Fans of soccer worldwide could ask you the same thing.”

The camera in his hand flashed a couple of times, digitally recording me standing in pissed-off mode.

“But I didn’t come here to talk to you because you’re not the story. The Lion is the story. He’s what the fans want.”

I slid around Alexis and balled my hand into a fist.

“Listen
Robert
, I don’t know who you are and I don’t care. If you don’t take off, it’s not going to go well for you.”

A look of terror skirted through his eyes before whatever was driving him regained control.

“Leonardo, the fans want to know, is this used car your latest slut?”

My fist smashed through his face before his eyes had a chance to blink. His knees gave out and he crashed to the fashionably tinted concrete floor. His eyes rolled up into his head and he was out. There was no need to continue the lesson.

But I didn’t always do things out of necessity alone.
 

That would’ve been a decent ending to the intrusion. And the insult. But it didn’t end there because, unfortunately, his buddy standing in the doorway was recording the whole thing on his mobile.

Alexis grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door.

“We have to get out of here. This is not going to help your reputation.”

“My reputation? That asshole deserves far worse.”

My heart hammered in my chest, and this time it had nothing to do with the thick flesh between my legs. It was rage. Pure and simple. Old as mankind and always in vogue.

I wanted to hurt that motherfucker.

I stomped on his camera as I passed his inert form. It wasn’t the sporting thing to do, but I wasn’t feeling particularly fair just then.

His idiot friend with the phone cleared out of the doorway as we swept through.

My blood boiled. Alex dragged me away before I did anything else that would’ve resulted in an expensive lawsuit.

I wished she hadn’t because I had a lot of money to burn.

Alexis

Maybe I was a small-town girl, but when a boy asked me to go back to his place after our first date, I never said yes. When Leo asked me back to his place after we left the club, the smarter thing would’ve been to stick to that rule.