Extra Time (6 page)

‘Hey, babe.’

She looked up from her phone, placing it down on the table as she smiled the biggest smile. ‘Hey, back.’

‘So, you thought you’d surprise me, huh?’

‘I needed a break, and this is the last chance I’ve got to take one before the new season starts. It’s already getting busy back at work.’ She looked right into his eyes. ‘And I missed you. I didn’t realise how much I was going to until you’d gone.’

He felt a small twinge of guilt as he realised he hadn’t really missed her at all since he’d been here. He’d been way too busy to even think about her. Busy doing stuff she didn’t really need to know about. ‘I missed you, too.’ Jesus! The lies still came so easily to him. But at least he felt guilty about reeling them off these days, unlike before, when his lies had driven away the woman he should have been married to by now. But instead she was married to his boss. How frigging wrong was that?

‘Really?’ Ellen gasped, her voice shaking him out of his thoughts of Amber. He had to learn to stop doing that, drifting back to memories of someone he was never going to have. No matter how much he still thought he wanted her. ‘Oh, Ryan… I was so worried about telling you I was here, because I know partners aren’t allowed on this trip, and what with me working for the club and everything… That’s why I chose this place to meet, it’s out of the way…’

He shut her up by leaning over the table and planting a kiss on her unsuspecting mouth. She tasted good – a mixture of coconut lip balm and sun cream.

‘Was I going on a bit too much?’ she asked, her voice quiet, her eyes carrying an almost worried expression. ‘I know I can talk for England once I get started but…’

‘Ellen, it’s okay. Really. I’m happy you’re here, and hey, I like a woman who’s willing to break the rules now and again.’ He grinned, turning the Ryan Fisher charm up a notch, and he could see her relax instantly. Her pretty shoulders sagged, and her face almost lit up as she looked at him. But somewhere inside, a very small, very quiet alarm bell started ringing in Ryan’s head – he liked being with her, but was she starting to become just a little too attached to him? They’d spent a lot of time together over the summer break, and he’d tried really hard not to give her any mixed signals, because the last thing he wanted to do was mislead her. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

‘Ryan… you and Amber…’

This was a conversation he really didn’t want to get into, not with her, so he was happy when a striking-looking dark-haired woman materialised at their table with two more bottles of beer, smiling at them both before retreating back to her post behind the bar. She provided a short but welcome distraction, and Ryan couldn’t help but watch her as she began serving another customer, smiling and laughing with a group of people at the bar whom Ryan guessed were regulars. It was that kind of place.

‘Ryan?’

He waited a second before turning to look at Ellen, that famous Fisher smile now firmly back in place. ‘Let’s finish these beers and go back to your hotel. Then you can show me just how much you’ve missed me. Okay?’

She smiled back, relief once more quite evident on her face. ‘Yeah. Okay.’

There was nothing like sex for taking Ryan’s mind off things. Nothing like it at all.

Amber closed her eyes and let the burning sun wash over her skin. Sighing contentedly, she settled back on her sun lounger by the huge circular pool at the team’s hotel. It was the day of Newcastle Red Star’s final match in their pre-season tour of Spain and the Canary Islands but, thankfully, Amber didn’t have to start work until later, when she and Ronnie would be at the match, talking to some of the players and interacting with the guys back in the studio, live from the game itself, a game which was being televised in the U.K. that evening on one of the Cloud Sports channels.

So, for now, all she had to do was relax. She couldn’t deny the nerves weren’t still there, though. This was a huge deal for her. She was the new face of football on a major satellite TV channel – for Amber it didn’t get much bigger than that. Cloud Sports had put a lot of faith in her, and she didn’t want to let anyone down, that was all. So far she’d been getting some great feedback, but those nerves were still going to take a while to settle down.

‘You look a bit apprehensive,’ Ronnie said, sitting himself down on the edge of the lounger next to her.

She opened her eyes, pushing her sunglasses up onto her head. ‘Yeah. Thanks for that, Ronnie.’

He smiled at her. Amber pushed her sunglasses down over her eyes and lay back again.

‘You’re doing great, Amber. Everyone back home is loving you, believe me.’

‘You’re not just saying that, are you? To placate me. I know what you’re like.’

‘As if. Anyway, you’ve done live TV before, haven’t you? Loads of times. Why should this be any different?’

‘I used to be on
local
TV, Ronnie.
This
is a whole different ball game.’

‘No it’s not. Where’s Jim?’

‘Team talk. They’re off to the ground for a training session in a little while.’ She sat up again, propping herself up on her elbows. ‘Why didn’t you bring Karen with you?’

Ronnie looked away for a second, staring out at the sea view in front of him. ‘I’m working, Amber.’

‘Yeah, and so am I. But I’m here with my husband.’

Ronnie looked at her. ‘Your husband is the manager of the team we’re following.’

‘So?’

He laughed slightly. ‘Come on, kiddo. Karen doesn’t want to hang around while I’m working. She’d only get bored.’

Amber sat up properly, pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging them to her. ‘She’d get bored? Here? Look at it, Ronnie. It’s beautiful! She could have…’

‘Leave it, Amber, okay? Just – just leave it.’

She widened her eyes as she looked at him, slightly taken aback by his tone. ‘All right. I’m sorry. Look, is everything okay?’

He sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘No, and it’s me who should be sorry. Things are just a bit… a bit weird at the minute, that’s all.’

Amber cocked her head, desperate to know what he meant by that but getting the feeling that, whatever it was, he wasn’t in the mood to talk about it. But she couldn’t leave the subject alone altogether. ‘All the more reason to bring her with you, then, surely?’

‘No, Amber. Don’t you see? If I’d brought her with me, if I’d insisted she come here, wouldn’t that just have looked as though I wanted to keep an eye on her? Keep tabs on her? Make sure she wasn’t…’ He stopped talking, looking out at the sea view again.

‘If it was me, I wouldn’t have seen it that way.’

‘Well, Karen’s not you, all right?’

Amber frowned. ‘You’re happy though, aren’t you? I mean, you don’t regret marrying her again, do you?’

Ronnie continued to look out over the stunning clear-blue sea that was dotted with the odd jet ski and a catamaran way off in the distance, no doubt out on a whale and dolphin sightseeing trip.

‘I’m happy, yeah. I’m happy.’

Amber rested her chin on her knees as she looked at him. ‘Really?’

He finally turned to face her again. ‘What is this, Amber? I came over for a chat not a frigging interrogation. Things are fine and I’m happy, end of story.’ He closed his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath, and although Amber badly wanted to continue grilling him over his slightly erratic moods, she thought better of it. Whatever was on his mind he quite obviously didn’t want to go into it here. Not yet, anyway. But she’d get it out of him, eventually. She always did.

‘Right,’ he sighed, leaning over to quickly kiss her forehead, giving her hand a small squeeze before standing up, shoving both his hands in his pockets. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘For a walk. Clear my head before we set off for the match.’

Amber watched as he headed back into the hotel, still frowning slightly. Something didn’t seem right, but she wasn’t going to push it.

Grabbing a short, bright pink kaftan from the table by her side, she pulled it over her head and stood up, smoothing it down over her white bikini. She was tired of sitting out in the sun now. Being out here on her own was only giving her far too much time to think about things, to dwell on stuff that she shouldn’t really be dwelling on, stuff that wasn’t important. Stuff that didn’t matter. And some stuff that did.

She was missing Debbie, too. She’d never really had a close female friend before, not until she’d met Debbie Hogan – part-time glamour model, North East socialite, gossip columnist, and new wife of Gary Blandford, Newcastle Red Star’s top defender and Ryan Fisher’s best friend. When she’d first met Debbie just a few months ago, Amber had thought there was no way the two of them could, or would, ever get on – Debbie was, more or less, your ‘typical’ WAG, if there really was such a thing, because Amber was beginning to think there wasn’t. Not really. Her attitude towards the women who shared the lives of these sometimes overpaid, cosseted, egotistical men had certainly changed after everything she’d been through with Ryan. And Debbie had become a friend Amber loved like a sister now. There were things she could talk to her about that she couldn’t share with anyone else, not even Ronnie, and especially not Jim. And right now, Amber missed her. Right now, Amber needed her.

Breathing an inner sigh of relief as the cool, air-conditioned interior of the hotel hit her, Amber strode towards the elevator, hoping with all her heart that Jim was in their room. She really wanted to spend just a little bit more time with him, on their own, before work took over once again, because sometimes she felt a little bit like she was still living in that glorious honeymoon period, and she was scared to let that feeling go. Scared to let reality back in.

Sliding her key card into the lock on the door of the hotel suite that had been their home for the past few days, she closed it behind her and walked inside, throwing her beach bag down onto the floor and pulling off her kaftan, casting it aside as she continued to walk through into the bedroom.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, her handsome husband, flicking through a pile of papers, his mobile phone close beside him, a frown covering his face.

‘You okay?’ Amber asked, watching as he lifted his head, his frown quickly turning into a smile.

‘I am now.’

She smiled back, climbing onto the bed and kneeling up behind him, sliding her arms around his shoulders, kissing the back of his neck. ‘You look tired,’ she said, slowly beginning to massage his shoulders, feeling the knot of tension below her fingers as she kneaded deep. ‘And you feel so tense.’

He threw his head back, still holding onto the papers he’d been flicking through. ‘I’m fine, honey.’

She continued to knead his shoulders, listening to his quiet moans as her fingers pressed harder. ‘What are you looking at?’ she asked, resting her chin on the top of his head. He quickly turned the papers over, placing them on the bed beside him, his hand palm-down on top of them.

‘Just work stuff. Nothing important.’

It was Amber’s turn to frown at the way he’d quickly hidden those papers from her view. But maybe he just didn’t want to talk about work anymore. That would be understandable. ‘Anyway,’ she said, shrugging it off. ‘How about trying to ease that tension just a little bit more, huh?’

‘What you got in mind?’ He smiled, closing his eyes as her thumbs stroked the back of his neck in small, circular motions.

She stopped what she was doing for a second, untying her bikini top and throwing it onto the floor before pressing her naked breasts against his back, running her hands up and down his arms as she rested her chin on his shoulder. ‘Oh, I don’t know. You got any ideas?’

He gave a low, sexy laugh. ‘Get over here. I need to look at you.’

She slid round in front of him, climbing astride him, pushing her breasts out as an invitation for him to touch her because, oh God, she wanted to be touched. She wanted him to touch her so badly.

‘Jesus, Amber,’ he groaned, running his fingers ever-so-lightly over her nipples, his eyes watching their every movement. ‘I don’t think I’d have got through this trip without you here.’

‘Yeah, you would,’ she breathed, throwing her head back as his fingers pressed harder against her naked breasts before travelling slowly down her body, trailing over her stomach, stroking her hips. ‘You’d have managed.’

‘You know that for sure, do you?’ he whispered, his lips lightly brushing the base of her throat as he began slowly untying the sides of her bikini bottoms, pulling them away from her so she was completely naked.

‘You’d have found some way of relieving the tension.’ She smiled, burying her fingers in his hair as his mouth covered one of her breasts, his tongue flicking over her nipple, sending her stomach on another major somersaulting session.

The time for talking was over. They both knew where this was heading now.

She could feel his erection hard against her, ready and waiting to fill her up, and she reached down to free him, taking him in her hand, gasping as her fingers wrapped themselves around him. His groans turned her on even more, her need to have him inside her growing by the second, so when he lifted her up slightly, she made no attempt to fight the inevitable, lowering herself back down onto him, guiding him in with her hand.

‘Oh Jesus, Amber…’ he groaned as he slipped inside her. She was so wet it took no force at all, no effort to push his way in. ‘You have no idea how much I need this right now.’

She threw her head back again as she rode him hard and fast, feeling him slip in and out of her in a beautiful, almost painful rhythm, her fingers buried in his hair as he thrust deep into her. She really couldn’t live without this man. She’d tried – for nearly two decades she’d tried – but despite thinking she’d put him to the back of her mind, laid all those ghosts to rest, she’d only really been kidding herself. He’d taken her at such a young age, and his hold had never loosened its grip. She was caught in his trap, entangled in his web, and there was no place else she’d rather be.

Within minutes she could feel that tingle begin to appear, start its climb, slowly turning from a delicious shiver into a tidal wave of exquisite pins and needles as he pushed deeper, taking her to that beautiful precipice before tipping her over the edge in a wave of pleasure and pain that engulfed her completely, making her cry out loud.