Love Unmatched (12 page)

I stood up from the apparatus and walked across the room, stopping by Vedder and Trells. Vedder was presently lying on the bench, doing a set of reps.

“So what happened on that play?” I asked, calmly.

Vedder’s eyes showed surprise. He was in the process of gripping the bar and lifting it up from his chest when he saw me. I motioned Trells to leave his spot, signaling that I would be spotting for Vedder.

Vedder spoke, “Look, if you can’t handle a last minute change of play, then you’re no good as a quarterback.”

“Who changed the play?” I inquired, and my voice belied the anger that had been boiling since I heard him and Trells earlier. Vedder had done it on purpose.

I added more weights to the rack.

“I did,” he admitted.

“Are you allowed to change the play?” My anger seeped through even more. Everyone was now looking at us.

“If I wanted to,” he snorted, defiance reflecting in his eyes.

Wrong answer.

“Listen here and listen well. This is the first and last time I will say this to you.” I felt my jaw muscles ticking overtime, and my voice was laced with menace.

He rolled his eyes and sneered, “Whatever.”

I added ten more pounds of weights. This time his face was held in a grimace. He was not going to be able to hold this position for long. The muscles on his neck were tightening up, and he was feeling the pain of the added weights.

“Listen here you fucker. Outside of that field I do not care what you do, or whatever shit you say about me. On that field I am your quarterback; I am your fucking god. If I say jump ten feet in the air to catch the ball, you will! You do not change plays on me. I don’t need your respect; you just need to fucking obey me, run the route, and catch the ball. If you don’t, I will fucking make sure that the ball never goes your way again, and we’ll see how your stats look after that. Do we understand each other?”

His face was even tighter now; in a matter of minutes his shoulders would give out and his arms would not be able to hold the weights.

He slowly nodded his head. His face was still pinched, but I made sure that he got my message:
No fucking around with me, especially during a game.

I removed the ten pounds of weights, but left the remaining ones on the rack. He would be able to move,
slightly
.

My voice boomed across the room, addressing everyone. “This is my team, our team. I am your quarterback. If I make mistakes, it’s on me. You make mistakes, it’s still on me. On that field, we are one. We have one goal – to win. You better make damned sure that you bring your A-game every single fucking time or we’ll have a problem. Am I making myself clear?”

I saw nods and heard ‘yes’ from my team.

John and I left the room a short while after.

“You empty me of my want and fill my every need.”

Zander

I was going to kill Xavier and John.

This gag had their imprints all over it.

I could not believe they would do this to me.

If Sedona heard about this, she would flip! I had specifically told them, "No lap dances!"

Shit.

I could not get out of these ties. They had me tied to this chair and I had no fucking idea how to untie myself. I thought that they had left me alone. I knew that I shouldn't have trusted those clowns when they easily said, "Alright," after I told them I was going to sleep. I couldn’t fathom how they managed to move me without waking me up. I must have been dead tired.

I was drained from the day's activities. Last night’s game went into overtime. After catching the red eye to Vegas, I’d gotten a max of three hours of sleep. The guys started arriving and we went out for some golfing. I didn't golf. Apparently, Xavier and the rest of them did. I did not see the point in hitting a tiny ball up in the air to try to get it into a tiny hole. The guys seemed to enjoy it though. When they asked me what I wanted to do for this bachelor shindig I told them I just wanted to relax. I guessed that meant golfing, bar-hopping, chilling by the pool, and now this; a private lap dance.

I tried to get loose from this rope that was tightly tied around my hands. What was this shit made of? Metal? I couldn't even loosen it. How would I explain this to Sedona? She knew I wasn't into this stuff. But if she heard about me getting a lap dance she would not be jumping for joy about it either.

I scanned the room. I couldn’t see anything since it was so dark. If I was going to get a lap dance how the hell did I see the dancer? Was this one of those freaky nightclubs where they touched you in the dark and you could not see who was touching you?
Fuck
. I would definitely commit murder if someone else touched me. I should actually have a tattoo on my dick saying, ‘Sedona's property, no trespassing.’ Was that too long of a tattoo? Maybe just 'Sedona's property' then. It was true. My dick didn't stand up for anyone else but my girl.

I heard the music playing. The sound of the riffs being played on the acoustic guitar filled the room. I recognized it as 'Pour Some Sugar on Me' by Def Leppard. My spit was the only thing that was going to be poured onto this chick or chicks if they touched me. Wait, I could just pay them off. That was a great idea. I'd just tell them that I would pay twice whatever the amount those clowns paid, as long as they untied me.

*****

Sedona

I couldn’t believe that Tanya was seriously considering that I should do this.

“No Tanya,” I protested for the nth time. “This is supposed to be his bachelor party. I am not going to ruin it for him.”

Tanya sat on the king-sized bed of our hotel here in Vegas, pouting. Her red hair was shorter now. She was going for a more chic look. As soon as she arrived from the airport she had been trying to convince me to do this.

“Look, this is the only way he’s even going to consider doing this,” she replied. “I called John already. He said that the club’s all reserved and ready to go. We just need you.”

I shook my head again. Where was Nalee when I needed her? Oh, that’s right. She was arriving in two hours since her flight had been delayed.

I turned my head to look at myself in the mirror. At five and a half months I looked like a balloon. How in the world was I supposed to dance like a stripper as Tanya was suggesting I should?

Yes, my crazy friend was suggesting that I should stand in as the stripper for Zander’s lap dance.

The guys had tried to convince him to go to a strip club, but he was vehemently against it. Even Kieran said that Zander was being such a killjoy. I had no problems with Zander going to a strip club. It was his bachelor party. But I could not force him to do it. And why would I? Just the thought of him being teased and grinded on by scantily-clad women was enough to bring back my morning sickness. I’ve had an easy pregnancy so far, aside from the anemia and the bouts of morning sickness during my first trimester that went into my four month mark. It was a struggle to do my internship at that time, but I had done it. Now there was no more morning sickness, just the constant feeling of being bloated and feeling like a whale.

I eyed the outfit that Tanya set on the bed. It was a two-piece neon green, tiger print spandex bikini set. The top was a triangle bikini top that tied in the back, and the bottom was a G-string. I have never worn something like this outside of the pool. Actually, some of the two-piece bikini sets that I wore for Zander were probably skimpier than what Tanya had picked out. My reservation came from the glaring fact that I had a protruding tummy, that my thighs were twice their size, and that my legs were starting to stick together when I walked.

Tanya’s emerald gaze pleaded with me as she said, “Listen here girlfriend, do you want your soon-to-be-husband to not have any lap dances or a stripper for his bachelor party? This is like a one-time party for him to celebrate his last days as a single man. And since he doesn’t want those strippers, you might as well give this to him.”

I stayed quiet.

“What if it was only you and him?” Tanya asked. “You would be on the stage and he was the only one in the room. Would you do it?” When she initially brought up the idea, she had said that only a few guys would be in the room. That was so not happening. Those guys would throw up if they saw what was underneath my clothes. They would probably run for their lives and swear to never look at a pregnant woman ever again. Where did Tanya and the guys get all these harebrained schemes?

“Tanya, it will only be Zander and I, right?” I repeated.

She nodded, her face breaking into a smile. “It will only be you, lover boy, and the pole!” she exclaimed.

“What pole?” I was aghast.

Tanya’s eyes flicked to the door. She was avoiding my gaze. I thought it was just a dance, but now there was a pole? Exactly how did she think I was going to manage climbing up and down a pole?

“Well, because of your condition,” she started, “You can’t really do much. But you can still work the pole. I’ll just have to show you.”

“I’m not climbing down the pole, right?”

“Of course not. Unless you want the pole to break into pieces with all your weight on it,” she reasoned,
like an engineer
.

I still could not believe this. But I wanted Zander to have his lap dance at his bachelor party, even if it was coming from his whale-sized fiancé.

“Fine, I’ll do this. But it’s only going to be me and him in the room. No one else.” I was not having anyone else see my humiliation. At least, with Zander, I could always resort to my powers of seduction.

So here I was, standing like a crazy fool on this stage. Tanya had set the music on a timer. I requested the lights to be turned really low. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Now it was hard for me to see. I still had to walk up the stage. Tanya said that my cue to go on stage was when the music played, “Love is like a bomb, baby.”

Where was Zander? As soon as I saw him I knew he was upset. He was probably cursing all the guys for doing this to him.
My poor baby
. Gathering up all the muster that I could manage, I started to walk towards the stage. He was still looking down. I heard that Xavier had tied him to the chair.

I saw the pole. I had Tanya clean the pole with the disinfecting wipes earlier. Who knew what kind of germs lurked on there? I did not want my butt touching other people’s butts. She must have been desperate for me to do this because she had cleaned it— twice.

The pole wasn’t my enemy. According to Newton’s Law of Motion,
if an object experiences no net force, then its velocity is constant
. I would not be shaking the pole, so the pole would not be moving, and its velocity would be constant. My butt and hips were the ones moving. I would be the one exerting the net force.

Zander started to look up. I couldn’t see his eyes. He was not going anywhere. He was stuck to his chair. I did the shimmy that Tanya taught me. I grinded my butt against the pole. I had to be careful, because I didn’t want to get a big wedgie if I stuck my butt so close to it. Zander’s eyes were on me, but the dim lighting made his expression was unreadable. He was probably trying to figure out what dimension he was thrown in. Tanya added a long, blonde wig to disguise my hair. I continued to work around the pole, but it was difficult to do in two-inch heels while pregnant, but I still tried.

Halfway through the music, I walked off the stage and moved towards him. He was clad in a blue shirt and jeans. He was definitely not happy since I could see that his jaw muscles were ticking overtime.

He still didn’t recognize me. I did more of the slow walk with a hair toss that Tanya had shown me. This time I added my own spin. I wondered if Zander would recognize me now. Surely he could see my protruding tummy, but it still looked like he was confused.