Dirty Player: A Rough Riders Novel (24 page)

Beaux grinned when he dropped his hands to his sides. “There are things a brother never wants to see. That’s definitely number two on the list.”

“What’s number one?” Oliver asked, settling his hand at the base of my back.

Beaux quickly backed up as the movers pushed in. 

“Where do you want your couch?” they asked, one of them looking at me as he continued walking backward. He lifted my couch over the boxes Beaux had just tripped over, essentially pushing him back into the wall at the same time.

“Where the nasty one currently is,” I replied. They were taking that and the old bed to the dumpster on the way out.

Seeming to ignore them as soon as they entered, and dodging their way as they began carrying out the old couch, Beaux glared at me teasingly.

“You remember when you were thirteen?” He shuddered as he asked the question.

“What happened when you were thirteen?” Oliver asked.

I rolled my eyes. “You were ten, and at some point you really have to get over it.”

Beaux shivered again. “Never.” Turning to Oliver, he said, “I walked in on her after a shower. All naked girl. Scarred me for life, I swear.”

“Funny. That’s one of the best things about your sister.”

If it was possible to truly turn green, Beaux did it. His hand flew to his mouth as he covered a vomiting sound and gagged. “Oh God. I’m going to throw up.”

I pointed down the hallway. Through my laughter, I said, “Bathroom’s that way.”

He hurried off, making exaggerating choking sounds, and when my phone rang I barely slid the screen a glance before I hit the speakerphone button.

Assuming it was Melissa, knowing it was getting close to when she’d be getting off work and calling to see how the move went, I answered and started talking.

“Hey, Mel! Thank you so much for—”

“Shannon.”

My eyes popped open at the sound of Patrick’s voice and my head whipped to Oliver.

“Patrick?” I asked, my throat going dry. Next to me, irritation began to prickle off Oliver’s skin, making my already tiny kitchen seem even smaller. “What do you want?”

He softened his voice—that tender one that used to make me melt into him, seeking his promises. “Babe, I came home from work and all the furniture’s gone. What’s going on?”

Oliver glared at the phone, and I saw his muscles begin to bunch beneath his short-sleeved shirt. He had a Rough Riders cap on, the bill covering his eyes and making it hard to see them, but I knew that hazel color was blazing.

“This isn’t a good time, Patrick. And I tried scheduling this with you, yet you refused. I told you Melissa would take care of it for me if you wouldn’t cooperate.”

“Honey, I thought we’d talk. I thought you agreed to see me.”

At that, those blazing eyes I couldn’t see burned into my flesh. I gritted my teeth and glared at Oliver and mouthed
Stop it.

His lip curled in response and I focused on the phone call.

“I did no such thing, Patrick. I’ve made it clear that I’ve moved on. You just refuse to listen.”

His voice tripped a bit when he asked, “Moved on? But, Shannon, you love me.”

“Not anymore, asshole.” Oliver’s thick, gritted voice came as a surprise and I gasped.

“What? Who is this?”

“The man whose dick was inside of your ex this morning, you fucking moron.”

“Oliver!” I shouted and then flashed wild eyes at Beaux, who was walking down the hallway. This was disintegrating quickly.

“Shannon, who is this jerk speaking to me like this?” 

I reached for the phone, but Oliver beat me to it. He clicked it off speakerphone and had it at his ear.

“Her man, dickwad. And she doesn’t want you. You tossed her aside, and I picked her up. I’ve spent so much time inside of her, tasting her sweet pussy, that you’re a memory for her. Now go the fuck away and don’t call back.”

Beaux made another gagging sound at Oliver’s words, but I couldn’t even look at him. Embarrassment and anger burned my cheeks. Along with lust.

Damn it, even his words tossed out for the sole purpose of pissing off my ex still made me want to climb him like a tree until he was doing all the things he’d just said.

“Don’t call again.” Oliver punched a button on the phone before tossing it roughly to the counter.

“What the hell was that?”

“Don’t talk to him again.” Oliver pointed at me. “That guy is fucked in the head and you need to stay away from him.”

“He’s clueless, not crazy.” I recognized my error when I suddenly had two insanely large men glaring me down.

“You defend him?” Beaux asked, appearing at Oliver’s side. They were so big they blocked the doorway. “He hasn’t left you alone in months, he cheated on you, and you’re going to stand here and defend him when he acted like he didn’t even know you’d left him? And yes”—he gestured with a wave of his hand down the hall—“I heard all of that. And if Oliver hadn’t taken care of it, I would have.” He looked at Oliver then and cringed. “Although I could have done without hearing the fucking and dick and sweet pussy part.”

He turned green again at the mention.

I no longer found this funny.

Fortunately, I was given a brief reprieve when the movers returned, carrying my bed.

“Excuse me.” I glared at both of them until they moved so I could get out of the kitchen. “Give me a few minutes.”

I followed the movers to my bedroom and gave them instructions on where I wanted the furniture set up. Before returning to my overbearing brother and—apparently—severely overprotective Oliver, I took a few minutes in the restroom to fix my hair and wipe the back of my neck with a cool rag.

What he’d said had been rude. Partly disgusting.

And yet even with that, the area between my legs began to pulse with desire. The man undid me. He kept me on my toes, never knowing when he’d switch from domineering to sweet.

As bothered as I was by the way he’d taken control of my conversation, I found that as I calmed down from the shock of all of it, I was thankful.

I was tired of talking to Patrick. Tired of listening to his lies and his pathetic voice. Today’s had been no different, a bit whiny. And after spending so much time around Oliver, I knew it wasn’t anywhere near masculine.

His words and his voice still hurt, though. Five years of being with him and I wanted to move on like Oliver suggested. 

Yet Patrick’s continued efforts at contacting me constantly pulled me backward. Not because I wanted him back, or wanted to go back to him—that ship had sailed the moment I saw him plowing another woman in the bathroom. But he was still my past, still a huge part of me and what I had once envisioned for my future. His constant phone calls and texts made it difficult to forget him.

Blowing out a breath, I smoothed back my curls that had come loose in my messy bun and then opened the door to the bathroom.

I got one step into the hallway before I almost ran into a mountainous wall of curved and sculpted muscle.

“You okay?” Oliver asked, his hands on his hips and his head tipped down toward me.

I memorized the way his shirt curved around his pecs, his abs, and then the way his shorts fit loose and low on his hips.

Lifting my head to meet his eyes was difficult, and when I finally found the strength, he was smirking.

“A body like yours should be illegal,” I said, my lips fighting a grin.

He’d caught me looking, admiring…soaking every perfect curve of his body into the deepest parts of my memory banks. There was no use in hiding that I liked the way he looked.

“Why? Does it make you want to do illegal things to it?”

“I’m still here!” Beaux shouted from what sounded like the living room. 

“Get over it, turd!” I shouted back before nodding at Oliver. “I’m okay. But you didn’t have to go caveman on him.”

He showed no sign of remorse. “I might have been more forceful than necessary, but you wanted him to leave you alone.” His brow furrowed. “Didn’t you?”

“I did. I just wasn’t expecting you to talk about your dick on the phone to my ex, I guess.”

I laughed then, softly, shaking off what had happened. Melissa would think it was hilarious. Maybe Oliver had a point: Patrick hadn’t been listening to me, and the very fact that he seemed confused I’d actually moved my stuff out showed how delusional he was—that maybe he thought I was considering crawling back to him and taking his scraps.

“I have to finish unpacking.”

Oliver checked his watch at his wrist. “How about we all go out for dinner first and take a break. You’ve been working all day, right?”

I had. I had been up at six in the morning when he left for early practice. I’d spent hours down at Stamped, making jewelry before the movers had arrived.

Putting my hands to his shoulders, I leaned up as far as I could and kissed his muscled throat. “Dinner would be good.”

***

My orgasm was quickly barreling down on me. I was on my hands and knees. My arms shook and my thighs trembled as fire and impending release spread throughout my body.

“Oliver.” I panted his name through parched lips. He drove into me hard, hitting that perfect spot deep inside of me that made me quake for him. “Please.”

“Get there,” he growled. He was on his knees behind me, one hand on my shoulder, pulling me back to him as he continued powering into me, his other hand down by mine.

I dropped my head, unable to hold myself up, and reached my hand to cover his. My fingers dug into the back of his hand as my body lit with fire.

Needless to say, we were breaking in my bed, and it wasn’t just great sex. It was fantastic.

“Come,” he commanded. He lost his quick rhythm and just before everything inside me began to tighten in culmination, he pulled out, flipped me onto my back, and slid right back inside. “Fuck it. I want to see you.”

My limbs wrapped around his body. My knees lifted high next to him, my heels digging into his lower back.

My hands dug into his shoulders.

“Coming,” I panted, feeling it overtake me. It was powerful and long as the shocks rolled through my body and I clung to him, tightening every limb until I pulled him down, chest to chest, his lips inches above mine.

“Beautiful.” He leaned down, claiming my mouth with his own. As I rode wave after wave of my orgasm, his movement jilted.

I heard something in the distance—like lightning hitting the Earth—right as he bellowed out my name, seating himself deep inside me, so deep it almost hurt, but damn it was good.

That crack I heard shook the floor beneath us and we fell to the floor.

“Ah!” I squealed and held on to him tighter.

“Holy fuck,” he panted as his weight collapsed on top of me, jarring me and stealing my breath. 

“What the hell?”

He lifted his head, his lips pulled back in amusement. “I think we broke your bed.”

“Or we had an earthquake,” I said, barely able to contain my giggle.

His eyes lit with fake fury. “Trust me. As hard as I just fucked you, we broke the bed.”

“So sure of yourself.”

“The bed is crooked.” Oliver smiled, a beautiful mouth with shiny white teeth surrounded by full lips that had tasted every inch of my body.

I looked to my left, still clinging to him, and saw that he was right. One side of the bed was much higher than the other, and we were still lying at an angle.

Closing my eyes, I pushed my head into my pillow and groaned. “Damn it. The movers must not have set the frame right.”

“Or your bed just can’t handle my superhuman strength.”

“Or the weight of your ego.”

I smacked his butt, unwrapping my legs from around him as he slid out of me. I thought we’d fix the mess we’d made and get cleaned up, but instead he curled into the bed next to me, draped one hand over his face, and pulled me to him.

“Let me relax before we fix this.”

I settled in, loving that he liked to cuddle. He didn’t seem the sort—but like so many things about Oliver, he continued to surprise me. 

At dinner that night, for example, I’d listened intently through most of it while Beaux and Oliver discussed the practice and some of the plays they’d struggled with. The coming weekend would be their first out-of-state game, when they traveled down to Miami.

The defense was clicking, but with so many new members on the offensive line, both Beaux and Oliver had said it was taking longer than it should for everyone to find their groove. I’d sat silent through most of the conversations, but still grinned as I realized that after Oliver had said he’d give Beaux a chance, all his animosity toward him seemed to evaporate. He could have been doing it for the good of the team, or to keep the peace between the woman he was fucking and her brother, but I suspected it was more than that.

Beaux was earning his respect, and Oliver was giving it freely.

After dinner, Beaux had taken off when I insisted I didn’t need any more help unpacking. I had barely stepped inside my apartment before I was staring at the floor, flung over Oliver’s shoulder, and then dumped onto my bed.