The Singles (23 page)

“No, I woke up on my own and realized you were gone. When I heard you out here, I—” I held my breath when he knelt in front of me, his full lips touching my knee cap as he coaxed my foot off the ball. “You’re amazing.”

Tossing the ball back and forth between his large hands, he lifted his shoulders modestly. “I haven’t played for competition in nine years, but I like to vary my workouts. I had this installed after I bought the place.”

“Vary your workouts?” I repeated, and his head moved up and down deliberately. A vivid image of his body leaned over mine, pumping furiously into me hit my memory full force. Automatically, I licked my lips. “Hmm ... well, it worked.”

Slanting away from me, he aimed for the goal and once again easily hit his mark. After he retrieved the ball and returned to my side, he leaned into me, the look in his eyes challenging. “Want to try?”

“Me?” At the disbelieving tone of my voice, he bobbed his head. “Didn’t I already tell you how much I sucked at athletics?”

But he was already moving around me, making sure the front of his body brushed every inch of mine until he was standing behind me. His hands covering mine, he positioned my fingers on either side of the basketball. “Here, spread your legs,” he said.

I moved my feet slightly apart, but it must not have been enough, because a moment later, I felt his hand between my thighs. Palming my center, he sucked in a breath.

“You have no panties on,” he mused, his voice low. “And your pussy is already wet.”

I widened my stance a little more, but the clench in my core was agonizing. “I have no idea what you did with my underwear,” I countered.

“God, you make it hard to concentrate.” But he pulled his hand reluctantly from my thighs, making certain to give my clitoris a harsh squeeze in the process.  He grasped my hips to still my trembling then lowered his mouth to my ear. “Alright, bend your knees.”

“Like this?”

“Perfect. You’re perfect, Lizzie.” Releasing my hips, he situated my arms until I was holding the ball a few inches above my waist. “Alright, push it up and shoot it in one fluid motion, like this—” I let him guide me, and a second later the ball slammed into the rim and fell onto the court.

I tossed my head back, laughing. “Told you I was a non-athlete.”

He gave my bare ass a hard smack before jogging to grab the ball. “It was your first time. Besides, you can play tennis.”

He’d remembered me telling him that? It had been mentioned so fleetingly, I was a little surprised. A blush of pleasure sneaking across my skin, I looked down at my feet, tugging at the hem of his tee shirt.

“So you never answered my question,” I said, and he sent a puzzled expression at me just before he went in for a layup.

“What would that be?”

“Do you come out here and play every night?”

“Just when I have a lot on my mind,” he stated.

A light breeze swept through his backyard, and I shuddered, rubbing my hands over the goose bumps that formed on my skin. “Care to talk about it?”

“A bunch of work bullshit. I’m not going to bore you with it.” His smile was almost forced, and I felt an uncomfortable tension in the back of my throat when I let my thoughts wander. He was lying, I could tell. But, hell, who was I to throw stones.

I
was a lie.

I turned on my heel. Maybe I shouldn’t have come out here. If this is what he did to ease his mind, I was interrupting. “I’m going back inside to—”

“Are you tired?”

Looking over my shoulder, I shook my head. “No,” I breathed. “I just didn’t want to get in the way.”

“Stay.” He raked his eyes over me. “I won’t be much longer, and I like you standing there in my clothes, looking like you were just fucked.”

“I
was
just fucked,” I pointed out, smirking.

But God, he knew exactly what to say to send my body into a state of sexual panic. Crossing my legs at the ankle, I watched in silence as he took shot after shot until I heard myself quietly ask, “Did your stepdad...did he teach you how to play basketball too?” At my mention of my dad, my vision blurred, but I immediately separated myself from the negative emotions.

I wanted to hear the good.

The beautiful.

Breaking his attention away from dribbling the ball, Oliver stared over at me, the muscles in his neck tightening. “No.” He alternated, bouncing the basketball with his left hand. “I was almost fourteen when my mom married him, so I already knew the fundamentals of the game. By that time I’d reached the point where I’d lost the stutter and had picked up getting high just like almost every other over-privileged fuck my age.”

He took another shot, this time missing and barely hitting the rim. “My stepfather was the person who talked me into joining the team. He thought it would be good for me.”

“Over-privileged fuck,” I echoed, ignoring the wiggle of jealousy that trickled through me. “God, you put it so eloquently.”

“It’s the truth, beautiful. Greg intervened and got me into this.” Staring up at the basketball goal again, his features wrinkled into a frown.

I was dying to know what he was thinking, but I didn’t want to probe—for both our sake. Digging too deep could be catastrophic, a heartache I wasn’t willing to let consume me tonight. Eventually though, his shoulders relaxed. His movements were slow, predatory, as he crossed the small court to stand in front of me.

Suddenly the racing of my pulse had nothing to do with melancholy thoughts of the past.

It had everything to do with the man in front of me with his hands on my face, his body a mere few inches from mine. “You didn’t come out here to talk about basketball.”

“No,” I admitted, “but I don’t mind.”

“I do.” He gathered me against him. “Call in tomorrow.”

I moaned in frustration. “She’d kill me.”

Releasing a curse, he gripped my ass and lifted me up. Need spiraled through me, and I refused to deny it. I denied so much already, that this—this was one thing I’d admit. Digging my fingers into his light brown hair, I tugged the damp locks back until we were eye to eye. When I tried to speak, he quieted me with his teeth, suckling on my lower lip until my core pulsed.

“I want you, Lizzie,” he growled, carrying me through the door and into the house.

“Again?”

I gasped when his shorts came down around his legs and the head of his erection settled between my folds. Supporting me against the closest wall we came in contact with, his fingers dug into the soft flesh of my hips as he buried himself inside my body. “Yes. Again.”

My pussy contracted around his cock, driving him to thrust harder. One of his hands moved from my hip to my hair, tangling in the straight platinum strands as my body arched and bucked against his.

He groaned. “I can’t get enough of you.”

“Don’t,” I cried out, clawing my fingernails over his muscled back. “
Don’t
.”

His mouth covered mine, and his tongue invaded my mouth, demanding more, refusing to let me back down. I accepted his challenge, molding my body to his as the orgasm built. A moment after I came, spiraling into oblivion, I felt his body go taut, and then he pulled out of me quickly, his hardness against my thigh. Before he could finish on my body, I wiggled out of his hold.

He watched me, his blue eyes darkening as I fell to my knees, and rounded my lips around him, pulling and sucking, wanting everything from him. Then, with a guttural roar that seemed to echo through the house, he let go.

I tasted him. Tasted him and myself, and I was on
fire
.

I shook my head fiercely, my hair a blanket between my face and his body, and once I could breathe enough to speak, I heard myself moan, “No, Oliver, don’t ever get enough.”

*

F
or the second night in a row, when I dragged my tired body into my apartment after work, we had company. Whoever was here reclined on the couch, so I couldn’t see his face, but Pen was sitting on the floor in front of him, running her tongue worriedly over the tiny gap between her front teeth. One thing for sure, it wasn’t Oliver, because the second my best friend’s blue-gray eyes lifted to me, she stopped talking, and her posture slumped.

“Finally! I’ve been texting you all night, Gem.”

“I had ... a few things to take care of,” I said tentatively, thinking that Linc had decided to move his trip back to L.A. up a few weeks. After the third degree he’d given me over the weekend, I wouldn’t be surprised. Peeking over the couch, shock snapped me upright when I saw another familiar face—a man I knew could probably hack into every bit of technology in my apartment in a matter of minutes.

“Hello, August,” I greeted Pen’s longtime associate and friend.

Sitting up, he turned and dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Gemma.”

Keeping my stance behind the couch, I rested my weight against the leather and dug my hands into the cushion. After what felt like an eternity, I exhaled, exasperated.  “You’re both looking at me like you want to say something, so spit it out.”

I was sore from last night and in a mood from spending another day transcribing recordings for Margaret. I just wanted a bath.

A bath and my boss’ son—the reason behind my exhaustion and aching muscles.

Pen looked down for several seconds, and when she tilted her chin back, all thoughts of Oliver took a backseat. Her expression was conflicted. Conflicted and hesitant. Waiting for her to speak, a ball of pressure started to form in my ribcage. She was about to say something that would rip me apart—that much was obvious.

When my father died, Mom and I were living in New York. After school, she had met me on the sidewalk like usual, walking all twelve blocks back to our apartment in silence, her beautiful face worked into a series of worried lines. She hadn’t told me about my dad until after we got home, but I’d never forgotten the look she wore all the way there.

It was just like the one marring my best friend’s face at this very moment.

Pen’s chest heaved as she got off the floor. Reaching over to the ottoman, she picked up a packet of papers I hadn’t noticed before and held them close to her chest.

“Sit down,” she suggested, none of the usual gaiety present in her voice.

Numbly, I walked completely into the living room and lowered my butt to the edge of the armchair. “You figured out the court documents?” I whispered, but she shook her head.

“Your mom—she didn’t have any real reason to suspect anything. You were her kid, and she thought you’d been wronged; she was just looking out for you.”

A sob hitched in my chest, and I didn’t know if I was more relieved or furious. If this was over, I could go back to Vegas. But if this was over, that meant my caller had been wrong. That I’d dredged up old doubts for no reason.

That I would be saying goodbye to Oliver.

“So we came here for nothing?” I was unable to keep the hysterical edge from my voice.

Once again, Pen moved her head from side to side. Her hand was trembling so violently, the papers fluttered together when she handed them to me. Even though I looked down, studying the last will and testament of Gregory Robert Emerson—my father—she continued speaking.

“I wanted to make certain before I told you anything, but that guy who called you was on to something.” Pacing the living room, she dragged her fingers through her dark hair. “Are you reading it?”

Gripping the pages with both hands, I cleared my throat. “This is the exact same document I looked at in Scott’s office the day I came to L.A. to meet Margaret. Pen, I—”

“Flip to the other stack,” August spoke up, his deep brown eyes pitying. Taking his advice, I turned to the second set of stapled documents.

It was almost identical to the first—there was my father’s name again—but instead of
Margaret Manning-Emerson
peppering every page, another name glared up at me.

Gemma Angelina Emerson.

Gemma Angelina Emerson.

My
name.

My head was spinning when Pen spoke up, but her words broke through the barrier. “August had a friend compare the signatures to your parent’s marriage certificate and your birth certificate. It looked legitimate because Michael Scott was your dad’s attorney and the witnesses’ names were there, but even their signatures didn’t match up to the original. The one with
your
name.”

I mumbled something—words that sounded like gibberish to my own ears—but my best friend must have understood because she bent in front of me, nodding slowly.

“The will Margaret and that douchebag attorney filed—it was a forgery. Gemma ... you were screwed. Just about everything that woman has laid claim to is yours.”

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Truth

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noun
  \ tro͞oTH

The quality or state of being true.

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“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

-Oscar Wilde

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T
he truth hurt.

The truth, even though it worked in my favor, burned with so much fury it nearly demolished my small body, making me want to crawl back into the shadows.

Several minutes after Pen’s revelation, I sat on the floor in my bathroom, my knees pressed up to my chest and the back of my head tilted against the door. I could hear snippets of my best friend’s and August’s conversation on the other side, but I wasn’t even paying attention. I was desperate to wrap my head around this new truth.

Why my stepmother and Michael Scott would do something so horrible to me.

I’d been a child when she screwed me over, and then she’d had the audacity to offer me a settlement when I approached her for help surviving alone.

My lips parted, and I exhaled brokenly.

I’d been a child, but she hadn’t cared that I was the daughter of her dead husband. She had been more interested in what my dad had left in trusts for me. I hated her for that.

And every tiny shred of humanity she’d shown in the last month couldn’t fix that loathing. I didn’t even want to try and let it.

Scrubbing the heels of my palms over my eyes, I swiped away the salty tears that scalded my lids and cheeks. I had what I wanted—the truth—but now I needed so much more.