Tackle (14 page)

… Liberating.

"Do it," I panted. "Fuck me."

Alex looked up at me, his mouth still locked against my tits, but still somehow fashioned into a grin. "I knew you were filthy," he moaned with delight. But he did
just
as I had asked.

My hands took on a life of their own, reaching down and undoing his belt. Without an ounce of fat to be found anywhere on Alex's slim, muscular body, his jeans fell away from his hips in an instant. "No underwear?" I asked, grinning.

"I knew you were coming." He smiled back, with the kind of glint in his eye that said
–
I never wear any
. He kicked away his shoes, the jeans now pooled around his ankles, and I pulled the plain tee over his head, revealing his cut stomach and washboard flat abs. He leaned in to my hair, took a deep breath through his nostrils and reached down to my panties.

"Careful," I moaned as his fingers probed between my legs, "they won't come off…"

I spoke too soon, because Alex didn't take the hard route of putting me down even for a second to let me take them off – he just ripped them off in a casual, awesome display of his strength.

"Fuck…" I groaned, "I liked that pair!"

Alex just grunted, and the primal noise made me immediately aware of
precisely
how turned on I was. He lowered his hands to my hips, and made to kneel down. I had a vision of what he was about to do – lift me onto his shoulders and eat me out against the glass. I knew I'd come, and hard.

But I didn't want to. Not like that, anyway.

"No," I panted, "I want you in me. Now."

Alex looked at me with the daring expression of a man who wanted me to be absolutely certain. "You sure you're ready?"

I was more than ready. If Alex thought that I wasn't wet enough to take his massive cock, he didn't know how often I'd thought about him taking me these past couple of weeks.

"Want to check?" I said, grinning cheekily.

Alex reached between my legs, his skepticism turning to delight in a second. He lifted me back up, pressing the head of his thick cock against the sopping wet slit between my thighs. I reached down eagerly, grabbing the impressive organ. It felt hot enough to burn me, but I persevered, guiding him inside me. I bit my lip as the thick cock stretched my pussy, grinding against my clit as Alex pushed his way forcefully inside.

"Fuck, Di," he gasped, as though one-syllable words were all that his brain could handle alongside the pleasure of finally entering me. He rested a second to let my body get used to the sudden stretch, but I shook my head. I didn't care how sore I'd be tomorrow – I needed to feel the heat of his seed blooming inside me. He cocked his head in surprise – but Alex wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He took control.

Alex gripped my hips hard, digging the tips of his short fingernails into my soft skin, and pulled me towards him, lifting my ass slightly off the glass surface until the full length of his cock was sunk like Excalibur between my thighs. He took one hand away, so he was supporting my entire weight with only one arm and his cock, and rested it gently on my throat.

And then he started fucking me.

I yelped, "Holy crap," as he powered into me the first time, crashing so hard that his pelvic bone ground against my clit, sending lightning dancing through my body. He did it again, his hand closing possessively around my throat, and he leaned in, kissing my collarbone.

"Jesus, you're tight," he groaned, slamming into me again, holding me up effortlessly as he used me like a sex toy. I blushed with pleasure, not that he saw it, and before long, the only color in my cheeks was the flush of a budding orgasm. Alex didn't stop, and I was glad of his athletic strength, because he took me harder, faster and longer than any man who'd ever made his way between my legs.

I began to see stars. I wasn't sure whether it was because the force of Alex's incessant thrusts was slamming my head against the hard glass – so hard I was worried it might crack, or because I was
that
close to orgasm.

I was pretty sure it was the latter.

"Be as loud as you like," Alex panted between thrusts. "The interview rooms are all soundproof."

For a girl whose experience of sex at college had been dictated by paper-thin walls and judgmental roommates, those words were like music to my ears.

I did as I was told.

"Jesus Christ," I screamed, "Alex, Alex – don't stop."

"I'm going to," he grunted, "fucking," another grunt, "cum," Alex moaned into my ear. I was so close, I couldn't let him do it without me, so I clenched my pussy around his thick cock. That was all it took.

"Come inside me," I whispered into his ear. He looked up me hungrily, almost joyfully, and thrust hard – once, twice, and one last time.

The world exploded between my thighs.

At that point, I thought that nothing could go wrong again. I didn’t know how wrong I was.

T
he sun was beating
down especially hard for Barcelona in October, but the whole of Spain was mired in the depths of late, hot Indian summer. Still, the weather was no call for cancelling training – even though, in hindsight, that would have saved my season.

I killed the incoming soccer ball dead with a feather-light touch on the outside of my foot, drawing impressed hollers and whistles from a couple of members of one of the youth teams training alongside the main pitch.

"Rodriguez,
rondo
," the coach barked. I grimaced. The
rondo
was right up there with the last things I wanted to be doing on a day as hot as today, but I didn't have a choice – in this camp, the coach's word was law.

"Yes, boss," I shouted, running up to the coned-off area set out for the exercise. I halted my run near the coach nevertheless, to make him aware of an issue I'd noticed. "Mind going easy on me today, boss?" I asked. "My quad's feeling a bit tight – I don't want to push it too far."

"You trying to weasel out of it, boy?" the coach grunted back at me, cold and uncaring. I bit my tongue – he was an old school trainer, the kind of guy who didn't believe in newfangled things like sports science, and certainly didn't care much for what his players were telling him about their bodies.

"No, coach," I said honestly, "I'm just saying—"

"That's your problem, Rodriguez," he snarled. "You’re always
just saying
something. Get in the circle."

I shrugged, throwing him a dirty look the moment his back was turned. Sometimes, I thought, it felt like Madrid was actually paying him to screw us over. He was a Neanderthal and had no place in the modern game. Except, unfortunately, I mused ruefully, he did. Specifically, he was in charge of me.

I got into the circle, nodding curtly at my teammates. "Ready?" I grinned. "You’re going to have to be."

Rodrigo chuckled. "Never give up, do you Alex?"

"With skills like these," I grinned, dancing lightly on my toes, "why would I?"

The coach's whistle cut through the banter, and it was on. I took my place in the middle of the circle, adopted a crouched position and waited. Rodrigo kicked the ball first. It went left, then across, then back, and just like the first time they put me in the circle, I waited. After months training with these men every day, I knew how they moved, and could even take a wild guess at what they were thinking. I saw the way Rodrigo's bodyweight shifted fractionally onto his left foot as he prepared to play a pass with his right, the way Stefan seemed to panic when the ball came in too fast.

The soccer ball pinged back and forth, and I finally made my move, rushing at Rodrigo. He grinned and calmly played a pass across the other side of the circle. I swore.

"You're not the only one who's got skills, my friend," he shouted.

Ten passes. Then twenty, and I was increasingly aware that I was beginning to look like a fool. I chose my target – Stefan. He was the new boy – only recently promoted from the training academy, still wild-eyed and wet behind the ears. I saw the player with the ball shift fractionally and prepare to pass it to him.

I didn't wait.

I rushed towards him, sticking out my leg to tackle him and take the ball.

Stefan’s inexperience showed. He panicked, and instead of giving up on his chase for the ball like any experienced player would, especially in training, he doubled down and charged towards it, going in hard, with the studs on his cleats showing as he barreled towards me. I felt him clatter into me, then the studs on the bottom of my right cleat connect with the turf, digging in like I was standing in quicksand and refusing to let go. My bodyweight was still stuck powering inexorably forward, but the powerful muscles on the front of my leg seemed for the first time not to have the strength to do my bidding.

My brain clocked what was about to happen before my body did.

My knee gave out before the turf relinquished my studs.

I screamed.

"Alex!" Rodrigo yelled in horror, but I barely heard it, scarcely recognizing the familiar echo of the word over the scream of pain from my leg and the pounding rush of blood in my eardrums.

It was a season-ending injury. I knew it.

"
H
ey
, buddy," Rodrigo said, doing his best to nudge me out of my depression, "they've got some American channels. What do you want to watch?"

I buried my head under the pillow, breathing in the sterile, antiseptic scent that reminded me exactly where I was – Barcelona Municipal Hospital. As if I could forget.

"I don't give a shit," I groaned. "Choose anything."

"Okay, my friend." The sadness in Rodrigo's voice said what he couldn't – it positively dripped with sympathy, and it was almost more than I could take. Of course, I couldn't send him away – hell, the last thing I wanted to be was alone, especially in a place like this, but every time I saw Rodrigo walking around unhindered, I felt bitter and jealous.

How was it fair that he was fine and I was not?

"That stupid fucking coach," I spat angrily over the familiar sound of an American news presenter. "I told him this would happen."

I sensed, rather than saw, Rodrigo turn in surprise. "What are you talking about? How could you know?"

"I told him. I fucking told him," I hissed. "My leg was feeling tight all day – tired. I've played too many matches without a break, and my quadricep needed a break – but what did he say?"

Rodrigo spoke in a hushed, sympathetic tone of voice. "I know, my friend."

"Do you?" I snapped, tossing the pillow I was hiding behind across the room and blinking back angry tears. "It's easy to say, but do you
know
what this means?"

Rodrigo sat back, chastened. The moment I finished shouting, I felt ashamed. Those weren't the actions of the kind of guy I wanted to be. Still, my body was suffused with so much rage – so much anger that I couldn't do anything about, that something had to break. Normally, in times like this, I'd go running – and I wouldn't stop until the rage had burned through me like wildfire. I wouldn't be doing that for a long time. The thought made me feel sick.

My ears pricked up as a familiar face appeared on screen. All too familiar.

"And now our Barcelona correspondent, Diana Lopez, is on the line to talk about a terrible accident in training. Diana?"

Diana looked tired and shaken, her makeup scarce, and what there was, was hastily applied. "That's right, Mark," she said haltingly. "We don't have a lot of details yet, the club is keeping quiet, but what we do know is that Alex Rodriguez suffered a severe injury in training today and is likely to be out for some time."

I bunched my fist up into a ball and squeezed it until the knuckles bled white. I hadn't even considered that Diana would have to report on this – and it hurt, but in a way that I hadn't expected. Looking at her up there, clearly worried about me and yet still forced to do her job pained me for her sake, not mine.

"You want me to turn it off, my friend?" Rodriguez said with a concerned expression on his face, pushing himself out of the chair beside my bed and reaching for the remote.

I grabbed his arm. "Leave it on."

"What does this mean for the rest of his season?"

"That," Diana sighed sadly, "is the key question right now, Mark. The truth is, we really don't know. He's in the hospital as we speak, awaiting the results of a scan on his knee – but from what I hear, the prognosis isn't good."

The anchor asked another stupid question – but one I hadn't considered. "And what does this mean for Alejandro's chances of making it to the World Cup?"

"It's fucking Alex," I spat in frustration. Rodrigo half-rose once again to turn the television off, but quailed beneath my glowering glance. I turned my eyes back to the TV, and I could tell by Diana's startled expression that she hadn't considered the prospect. Hell, nor had I, and it was my knee!

"Like I said, Mark, we just don't have the details at the moment, and I don't want to speculate. But if he doesn't make it," she sighed, "it doesn't spell good things. Alex is far away our best player, as you know."

"Thanks, Diana. Sad news, but good to know you're following it closely for WBC."

The camera panned back to Mark, the anchor, and he quickly finished up before the WBC Sports logo flashed onto the screen and the channel cut to ads.

Fuck, the World Cup!

I needed something to distract me. "Where's that doctor?" I hissed to Rodrigo, the pain suddenly returning to my knee. "Shouldn’t he be here by now?"

"I'll go check," Rodrigo said, looking relieved to have an excuse to leave the room. I couldn't blame him – the last thing any professional athlete wanted was a reminder of the ultimate frailty of his only asset – his body.

My head barely felt as though it had sunk back onto the pillow before he returned, complete with a white-suited doctor carrying a clipboard. It was so stereotypical I wanted to laugh.

"What’ve you got for me, doc?" I said grimly, indulging in a bit of gallows humor. "Are you going to have to take the leg?"

The joke went right over the black haired Spanish doctor's head. I couldn't blame him. It was terrible. "Mr. Rodriguez," he said softly, "I'm sorry to have to see you today."

"Not half as sorry as I am to be here, doc." I grinned. "Seriously, put me out of my misery."

He looked down at his clipboard, as if steeling himself to give me the bad news. "There's good news," he said, "and bad news."

I wanted to scream – what the hell was stopping him from just telling me? "Okay?"

"The bad news is that it's your knee – the cruciate ligament. The good news is," he said checking his clipboard again, "that it's not a complete rupture – just a tear."

I groaned. A cruciate ligament injury was bad, really bad. "How long will I be out?"

"It's hard to say," the doctor equivocated. "Depends how your physiotherapy goes…"

"Ballpark, doc," I hissed.

The doctor shot me an almost terrified glance. "Six months."