The Debt 12 (Club Alpha) (6 page)

He pulled completely out for a moment,
holding the base of his engorged cock with one hand, and then he spurted a
stream of white hot cum onto her pussy lips, before pushing back into her slick
hole and letting loose the rest of his seed.

Chase cried out, groaning, as she also
climaxed again.

“Fuck me,” she said, breathless.
 
“Fuck me.”

And he did.

***

Afterwards, they went and showered
together in the master bath.

They were like a couple of teenagers,
laughing and giggling, totally at ease with one another.

She soaped Chase’s body like before,
rubbing him down, feeling every inch of him, enjoying the interplay of his well-muscled
frame.

There wasn’t any sex this time, but there
was lots of sensual enjoyment of one another.
 

Chase, for his part, wanted to wash her
hair, and she let him.
 
He massaged
her scalp like a pro, and she closed her eyes, feeling the hot water and steam
and her love’s fingers, pressuring her scalp and making her feel like she was
at some spa getting the royal treatment.

After the shower, they both got changed
into sweat pants and t-shirts, and they went downstairs and Chase broke out ice
cream, making them up each a bowl of Peanut Butter Cup ice cream and proudly
handing her the bowl, like a kid showing his parents what he made in class that
day.

They sat on the couch, cuddled together,
with a quilt covering their laps, and she curled up next to him, watching a
Matt Damon movie where he played a criminal mastermind.

It didn’t matter what the movie was,
though.

They were together.
 
It was late at night and so much had
happened, and yet they’d made it through all the drama and fighting.

Boogie was forgotten.

Chase leaving her alone for hours without
explanation was forgotten.

The wounds, at least temporarily, were
closed.

They watched the movie mostly in
silence.
 
It was enough just to be
close, just to know they had one another.

She put her bowl of half-finished ice
cream down and soon began to drift off, and when she awoke, Chase had turned
the television set off and was picking her up like a father might pick up his
sleeping child.

“Oh, I fell asleep,” she said, as he lifted
her easily off the couch in the darkness.

“Shhh…” he said.
 
“Don’t worry.”
 
He held her in his arms and then walked
her upstairs and into the master bedroom, laying her on the bed and tucking her
in.

 
“Chase…” she said.
 
“I love you.
 
I really do.”

“I love you too,” he said, sliding into
bed next to her and holding her.

“Promise we’ll always be like this.”

“Always,” he promised.

And then he fell asleep too, at perhaps
the same time as she.
 
They drifted
off like that together and didn’t wake up again until the doorbell rang.

It seemed that just moments had passed
when Faith startled awake once more—and Chase was already on his feet,
putting on his clothes.
 

“What happened?” she said, her heart
pounding.
 
“Is everything okay?”

“Someone’s here,” he said, as he pulled a
shirt on over his massive torso, covering his tattoos.
 

The doorbell rang again.
 
Faith got out of bed, too.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

He shrugged, and then started out of the
room, as she put her clothes on.
 
By
the time she’d gotten dressed, Chase had already gotten downstairs and was
opening the front door.

“Hey,” she heard him saying, and his tone
was one of concern and surprise.
 

There was the sound of a woman’s voice,
but Faith couldn’t hear her words.
 
Just knowing it was a woman sent her stomach into knots.

And Chase had sounded caring and
concerned, which made her wonder if this wasn’t some ex-lover or ex-girlfriend
showing up at his doorstep.

Just the thought of it made her almost
unbearably jealous.

Calm
down, Faith.
 
It could be anyone standing out there right now
.

She hurried out of the bedroom and ran
down the stairs to the first floor.
 
Already, Chase was letting the woman in.

It took Faith a moment to register that
Monique was standing in the apartment, talking to Chase.

Monique was wearing a long dark coat and
dark sunglasses.
 
She looked much
different than she had the other night.
 
It was as if she was attending a funeral.

“Hi, it’s me again,” Monique greeted her.
 
Her voice was low and raspy.
 
“I’m so sorry to disturb you guys, but I
didn’t know where else to go.”

Chase was clearly uncomfortable.
 
“What…ah…do you want—you know…do
you need anything?”

Monique shrugged slightly, and Faith
realized that this was truly a job for a woman.
 
Chase was a big, strapping, strong
man.
 
He had no idea what it was
like to be vulnerable, to be in Monique’s situation.

“Do you want to talk for a minute, just
the two of us?” Faith said.
 
“We can
sit and have coffee in the kitchen.”
 
She looked at Chase and he seemed relieved to be off the hook.

“I actually wanted to hop in the shower,”
he said.
 
“I’ll be down in like
twenty or thirty minutes.”

Faith waved at him.
 
“We’ll be fine,” she assured him, and
then put her hand on Monique’s shoulder.
 
“Coffee sound good?”

“Yes,” Monique said, and her voice was
strained but grateful.
 
“Thank
you.”
 
She pulled off her sunglasses
and her eyes looked very tired, and one of them was black and blue.

Faith felt a surge of pure, unadulterated
rage as she realized that this was clear proof that Chase’s story was
true—not that she ever had reason to doubt it.

They walked into the kitchen and Faith
started a pot of coffee.
 
As she
worked, Monique unbuttoned her coat and put it over the chair next to the table
and then sat down.

“I’m not sure if Chase told you about
what happened to me the other night…”

“He did,” Faith said.

There was a long silence and Monique
didn’t seem anxious to fill it.
 

“So,” Faith said, smiling, trying to put
Monique at ease.
 
“I take it you’re
not just here to test out my coffee making skills.”

“No, I wish that was what brought me here,”
Monique replied wearily.
 
She
dragged a hand across her forehead and closed her eyes.
 
“I’m dead tired.
 
Haven’t slept in forty-eight hours.
 
And I’m scared, too.”
 
She opened her eyes and Faith was struck
once more by how beautiful Monique was, even with everything that was happening
to her.

“What are you scared of, right this
instant?” Faith asked.

“That I don’t know what I’m doing.
 
That my life is going down the drain.”

“Anything else?” Faith probed.

Monique licked her lips and tapped the
table, nodding.
 
“I’m scared of
him
,” she whispered.

“Do you want to tell me about what
happened to your eye?”
 

“I hardly remember.
 
But I know what happened because it’s
happened before.
 
This wasn’t the
first time, not even close.”

Faith sighed, pulling down two mugs from
the cupboard and then pouring the steaming coffee into them.
 
Her own heart was beating fast but her
hands weren’t shaking yet, at least.
 
“How do you take it?”

“I have no idea,” Monique croaked.
 
“I guess I’m just crazy like that.”

“No, I mean your coffee.
 
How do you take it?”

The two women made eye contact and burst
into laughter.
 
Instantly, a great
deal of the tension left the room.

“Black,” Monique said, and that set them
both to laughing once more.

Faith brought her mug to her and then sat
down next to her with her own mug, and crossed her legs.
 
“Tell me about him,” she said.

“Well, first of all—to me, he’s not
Velcro.
 
He’s just Steve.”

Faith understood all too well what the
other woman was saying.
 
“I
completely get that, believe me.”

“I know,” Monique said.
 
“We’re our own little
club—girlfriends and wives of athletes, and especially superstar athletes.
 
It’s something that you can’t really
relate to unless you’re one of us.
 
That’s part of why I came here.
 
I figured you’d be here with Chase, and I wanted to talk to you.”

“Really?
 
You were looking for me?”

Monique chuckled.
 
“Is that so hard to believe?”

“I don’t know.”
 
Faith shrugged.
 
“Maybe.”

“Well, you should give yourself more
credit.”

Faith smiled.
 
“Fine, I will.”
 
She took a sip of coffee.
 
“So, about Steve…”

Monique’s slight smile dwindled on her
face a she contemplated the topic of her fiancé.
 
“Steve’s complicated.”
 

That
seems like quite the understatement
,
Faith thought, as she stared briefly at the ugly shiner on Monique’s eye.

Monique didn’t seem to notice Faith’s
staring.
 
She pursed her lips and
took a deep breath.
 
“When we first
met, it was electric.
 
The physical
and emotional connection we had
was
off the charts.
 
Know what I mean?”

Again, Faith did.
 
She nodded her understanding, thinking
of what had transpired between her and Chase.
 
“Yeah, it can be interesting.”

“I bet.”
 
Monique arched an eyebrow.
 
“The two of you look like you want to
jump each other all the time.”

“We do?”

“Hey, I’m not judging.”
 
Monique laughed more easily.
 
“Anyway, me and Steve used to be like
that.
 
It was just, like, hot, all
the time.
 
He truly swept me off my
feet.
 
And even when the first signs
of trouble started, I didn’t really notice because everything was moving so
fast.
 
Steve invited me to come live
in Boston with him, and I did.
 
I
moved away from everyone and everything I knew to be here with Steve, to
support his career—and to build our life together.”

Faith felt sweat beads breaking out on
her forehead.
 
Listening to Monique
was in some strange way, like hearing herself talk about Chase.
 
The exciting early
days, the warning signs, the refusal to see the darkness ahead.

Sacrificing so much for one man you
didn’t know well enough.

Monique picked up her coffee but didn’t
drink it.
 
She put the mug
down.
 
“The arguments between us
started getting more intense when Steve got injured last season and was in
rehab.
 
He was so frustrated being
out of the game, and he started taking it out on me.
 
He’d pick fights with me, and he started
acting crazy jealous.
 
It was as if,
without the outlet for his aggression, he had to put it all somewhere.”

“And that somewhere was you,” Faith said.

Monique sighed.
 
“Sure.
 
I tried to
be
understanding
, but I was getting scared of him.
 
He slapped me one night after a
party—sound familiar?”

“It does,” Faith said, remembering how
quickly the mood had soured between Monique and Velcro at the party in their
hotel room.

“Maybe it was the alcohol, I don’t
know.”
 
The other woman’s eyes were
shining with unshed tears.
 
“I was
more shocked than hurt, the first time it happened.
 
But after that first slap, something
shifted between us.
 
It seemed like
Steve was always one step away from shoving me, grabbing me, getting angry and
screaming in my face.”