Tackled (Alpha Ballers #1) (14 page)

Drake increased his speed, moving in and out of me with a rhythm as I got used to having him inside me. I could feel the tides rising in me again, and I knew I would cum soon.

Drake bent over me, kissing down my neck, slowly, toward my breasts. I braced myself, but when he started lapping at my sensitive nipples, the effect was even stronger than I expected, and I couldn’t help but buck my hips against his waist. Drake adjusted his rhythm to move with me, and soon we were fucking again with abandon.

“You’re gonna make me cum soon,” he groaned above me as he pushed in another deep stroke.

“Please, Drake, cum inside me,” I moaned in response. I needed to feel him. Saying that pushed me over the edge and I nearly lost consciousness as I came again.

I must have said the right thing, because Drake came too, and I could feel his cock pulsing inside me as his hot cum flooded into the condom.

We both made incoherent guttural sounds as Drake collapsed on top of me. He finally let go of my hands above my head, and I slowly moved them down, running them over the muscles of his arms and shoulders.

We drifted off to sleep with Drake’s cock still inside me.

CHAPTER 14 - DRAKE

I woke up before dawn, Lily lying next to me in her bed. It was dark out, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, and then I was suddenly confused - this was not my room. Lily stirred as I moved around and then the memories of the previous evening came flooding back, and I smiled, putting my hands behind my head.

Yeah. That had gone well. I stared at Lily, sawing logs peacefully next to me, and I marveled at the quiet beauty she showed even in repose. I had woken up next to my share of girls, on the rare occasions that I let them spend the night, and I couldn’t remember one that looked as good as Lily did while she slept.

And the sex, whoa, the sex had been wonderful. Just the best. I was already hard and ready to go again just looking at her next to me, but I knew that I should let her sleep. As an athlete I was used to getting up before the crack of dawn for workouts or practice, but she didn’t follow the same schedule, and as much as I wanted to fuck her again, I really should get going if I didn’t want to be seen when others started waking up.

I managed to extricate myself from the bed without disturbing Lily too much; she just sighed happily and continued dreaming away. I got my clothing from the pile on the floor, making sure to leave her stuff close by, and drifted out of the room like I had never been there.

I made my way stealthily through the Patriots compound, all grey and boring aside from bright posters of Patriots legends and inspirational quotes on the walls, darting left, looking right, making sure there was no one prowling the halls at 4am.

Really, though, even though I was skulking around trying to make sure no one noticed me, my mind was still back in Lily’s room with her. In my mind we were still fucking, still having the time of our lives exploring each other’s bodies.

I sighed, and glanced around really quick to make sure anyone I hadn’t noticed hadn’t noticed me making too much noise. This…could be a problem.

If I didn’t reign in my still-growing feelings for her I’d be in trouble. I really didn’t have time to deal with this right now - I was fighting for my life, metaphorically, of course. I knew that no other professional football team would give me a shot if I flamed out with the Patriots, so this was going to be my first and most likely only shot at ever playing for real on the biggest stage there was.

I needed to focus, to bury my head in the playbook and only leave the weight room and practice field to eat and sleep for the next month. But that wasn’t going to be easy with Lily Pearson around, both in my head and in person.

I had to find a way to keep this a casual thing. But even if I was able to, say if Lily would go for something like that…would I be able to stick with it?

And more importantly, would I be able to get done what I needed to so I could make the team and realize my dream?

Lily must know this was a short term thing too, right? Whether or not I made the team, she wouldn’t be covering me as closely, in her, uh, professional capacity, once training camp was over. Then it would be into the grind of the regular season, and I had no idea how guys with families or even girlfriends handled the constant travel, the long days and the significant preparation and recovery times before and after each game.

Playing high school and college football while juggling school hadn’t been easy, I couldn’t imagine how much tougher things would get if all I had to do was get ready to play, play, and recover from playing.

So maybe Lily knew this was going to be a short term thing. We would fool around and hook up when we could, and do our interview thing during the day, keeping things looking professional. And when I made the team, we’d separate. That could work, right?

I wasn’t even sure of that already. With any other girl I’d be thinking about more important things already, but this girl just stuck with me, like no one ever had before. I wanted her to like me, I wanted her to want to be with me, even if we could only do a short term thing because of our careers. Hell, I’d be with her in secret if I could.

I arrived back in my room right around then, and slipped my key in the door, not wanting to wake Lance Parker up. True to form, he was sleeping like a baby, and snoring like he usually did. Maybe I could get used to sleeping in Lily’s bed…

Ugh. That would not be a good idea for my rest schedule. It wasn’t easy working out or eating or practicing this hard or this often, especially after the private offseason workouts since football ended at school.

I needed my rest. But, I realized as I undressed and slid back into my own bed to grab what little extra sleep I could before the alarms went off and Day 3 began, I also knew that I would not turn down another night fucking Lily.

The next few days passed with surprising speed. I was lagging a bit behind the other wide receivers in cramming the playbook into my head, and the next couple practices really showed that.

The coaches would call my number, they’d tell me to run a route, and more than once I flubbed it and ran the wrong one. I tried to explain that I’d just found out I was gonna be trying out for the team less than a week earlier, and that I hadn’t even received the playbook until Monday when I arrived, but they coaches weren’t having any of it. They cursed me out a blue streak and had me sit on the sidelines and watch while the rest of them practiced.

I noticed Coach Armstrong see me while I fumed on the sidelines. Fuck this shit.
 

I had to focus more. And the end of the week, Lily came up to me for our daily interview, and I just couldn’t do it anymore.

“How was practice today, Drake?”

I narrowed my eyes. Yeah, she looked good, Yeah, even though I was bone-tired I could picture us in bed again. We hadn’t yet gotten to repeat that night, not with how busy I had been since, and how much work I still had left. “You know very well how practice went today, Lily,” I replied, trying my hardest to keep my voice even and not let the anger and humiliation I felt seep in.

It was not easy.

“I saw you spent a bunch of time on the sidelines. What was that about?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Lily pressed on. “Come on, Drake, remember how this works. You practice, then you talk, then I write. Remember?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Couldn’t she see how wound up I was? Why was she still asking me these questions?

“So, practice today, how come you were benched?”

“Because I didn’t know the fucking playbook yet, OK? Fuck. I still have to learn the route tree so I know where I need to be when Lance throws me the ball, got it?” I snapped at her, forgetting myself.

Lily looked like I had hit her in the face. I felt like shit. “Uhh, ok, Drake, good to know.” Lily sounded tense, like she was suddenly super nervous around me. She recovered after a second, her voice going back to her normal reporter even tone. “How are you planning on fixing that up?”

I sighed, still aching over how I had just sounded. “I’m going to study more, make sure I know all I need to know. It’s gonna take a little time.”

“The first round of roster cuts are coming in a week, Drake. The coaches don’t have much tape on you to evaluate you yet.” The implication in her words was clear - so far this was not going well.

“I know, I know, I’m working as hard as I can, but this is a lot to learn and I haven’t had the time yet.” I sighed again and looked up at the sky for a second before focusing back on Lily. “I know that’s no excuse, though, and it won’t happen again. I’ll be ready by Monday.” The weekend was coming up, and all I planned on doing was study after brief workouts in the morning.

Lily put her notebook away, and I knew the interview was over. “Hey,” I started as she turned around to leave. The rest of the players had dispersed - the coaches had told all the players and staff to give us our space during the interviews.

Lily didn’t respond. “Hey,” I said again. “I’m sorry-“

She whipped around and stared me down, her eyes blazing with anger. “Save it, Drake.”

“Look, I’m apologiz-“

She poked me right in the chest, just above where the pads ended. “I don’t need your apologies. And I don’t need you taking out your problems on me. I’m here doing a job just like you are, and unlike you, I see to want to keep working around here beyond the next month.”

I stood there like a statue. “Are you OK?”

Her eyes lit up again. “Don’t you dare make this about me, Drake. This is all on you. You’re the one who doesn’t know his shit yet. You’re the one in danger of getting cut from the team.”

“And if I get cut, what’ll that do for you?”

“We may be in this boat together, but I’ll be damned if I let you take me down with you.”

“Listen, Lily, I’m trying-“

“Well, try harder. Make this work, Drake.” Her voice softened, and it looked like she was almost about to cry for a second before she caught herself. “You have what it takes, I know you do,” she started again, softer this time, just in case anyone else was listening. “And you won’t get another shot at this.”

“I know.”

We were about to keep going back and forth like this when there was a commotion on the other side of the field. Both Lily and I turned to look at it and saw a group of guys gathering, still in their gear and pads, around someone or something.

Lily and I looked at each other and we fast-walked our way over there, wanting to see what was going on.

By the time we got close I could tell the other guys were cheering, but it didn’t become clear about what until I pushed my way in.

Oh shit. Mike Sampson was here.

Mike Sampson was another wide receiver for the Patriots. He was a big deal, a middle of the road talent that had made some amazing catches, and who everyone in New England had high hopes for.

Mike Sampson had signed a 4 year contract with the team just a couple years ago, meaning he had 2 years left on his deal, and presumably knew just how much money he was going to be paid.

Mike had decided a few months ago that he was not happy with this amount, and had signaled his attempt to hold out from the team and not show up to training camp, trying to force the team to renegotiate a deal they had still had 2 years left on.

Evidently, that holding out process had come to an end, and Mike Sampson was now coming to training camp, ready to rejoin his teammates and help bring a championship to New England.

Shit. Now there was one fewer roster spot for wide receivers.

I pushed my way out of the huddle, back to where Lily stood. She was still mad at me, I could tell, even though she didn’t show it nearly as much as a couple minutes earlier.

I stood there, staring at the huddle, wondering what this meant for me, until I realized Lily was poking me in the ribs again. “Hey, Drake,” she said in a low voice.

“Yeah?”

“Your job just got a whole lot harder.”

She was right. Fuck.

Shit had just gotten real.

CHAPTER 15 - LILY

Drake didn’t even try to sneak into my room that entire weekend, and even if he had told me he wanted to, I would have told him to get bent.

Sure I wanted to kiss him, sure I wanted to undress him, sure I wanted to feel his perfect body above mine in bed while he fucked me, but right now there were two things getting in the way of me enjoying having sex with Drake Rollins right now:

A) Drake Rollins had some work to do in order to make sure he still had a job in 3 weeks, which would determine if I had a job too. So as much as I wanted his cock, I first needed a way to compress and stuff an iPad’s worth of football plays into his head.

B) Drake Rollins was being a douche bag and taking out all his frustrations on me, and I wasn’t having any of it. He was on sex probation till he got his head on straight.

A made sense to me, I could wrap my head around that, but B was not nearly as easy. After just one night of having Drake Rollins in my bed, when I got back to my room after the day’s work, kissing him and feeling his hands on me, his cock inside me, was all I could think about.

I imagined and hoped that Drake spent the weekend studying, but it was a crappy weekend sex-wise for me too. I didn’t know anyone around here, and I didn’t have anything to do, so I went home and spent some time with my family.

My dad asked me all the questions I knew he’d been thinking up all week and I answered them as best I could. It was wonderful to see him again, and I almost didn’t want to come back to the Patriots facility in Foxboro when the weekend was over.

After practice on Monday, I headed over to the sidelines for my interview with Drake. He still had his pads on, and even with them on, he looked so good with the sweat running off him like that.

I couldn’t help but flash back to the two of us in bed, and long for those moments again. “Hey Lily,” Drake said, stopping in front of me just as I got my notebook out.

“Hey Drake. Rough practice again today?”

“Yeah.” Drake had gotten his number called a few times, and this time he knew the routes.