Page 1 of Jocked Up

Chapter One

“Seriously, Amelia, let it go. I’m not going to go in and talk to him. I don’t want to talk to him. I’m going to sneak in the back door, drop the dress off, and run out again. Stop badgering me about your brother. I don’t want to talk to him!” Blowing air between my lips to blow my hair from my eyes, I turn into Amelia’s driveway, listening to her through my car speakers.

“But he’s changed, Bethany, I swear he has. And he needs a woman like you, honey. Come on, just say hi to him. I’m not even there to giggle or anything. Please?” Amelia’s honey-smooth voice pleaded with me but I wasn’t having any of it.

“I haven’t spoken to him since your mom and my dad broke up, he obviously hasn’t had anything to say to me. I’m here now so call me later. After this dedication thing, when he’s gone again, preferably. I have a son to raise, I don’t need a man.”

“Bethany that was in college! It’s been over five years now; you really can’t mean you’re done with men?” Amelia protested.

“That affair in college was all I needed, thank you Amelia. A hotshot NFL quarterback is the last thing I need. I couldn’t handle the ego.” I groaned in disgust as I thought about it. “I’ll talk to you later.” I broke the connection and turned the car off. I was dreading this but Amelia insisted she needed me to drop off the dress that she was borrowing from me. I knew it was just a ploy to get me to talk to Drake but it wasn’t going to happen. I had nothing to say to him.

I opened my car door, pulling the dress out from the backseat, and closed the door quietly. My car engine was quiet; I knew he hadn’t heard me coming into the driveway. Now I just had to get in and out without seeing the face of the man that still set my hackles on end. Drake, Amelia’s brother, and at one point almost my step-brother, was hotter than any man had a right to be, but his personality left a bit to be desired.

Pushing memories away as I cursed myself for not wearing shoes with softer soles I stepped into the kitchen. As always, Amelia’s home was immaculate, so immaculate you’d almost think it was a showroom. I draped the dress over a counter where she could see it and turned to leave.

“All you had to do was call, Bethany, you didn’t have to sneak into the house to see me.” The deep male voice, a smooth, sexy, singer’s voice, sent a shiver down my spine and made me pause. Shit, he’d caught me.

Turning with a blank look on my face I faced Drake. God, he still had that same shitty grin that made me want to slap him from so long ago. That grin said he knew all women wanted him and that panties spontaneously combusted in his presence. This was the last person on earth I wanted to see and he was standing there, sexy as ever in a dark suit that fit him perfectly, doing little to hide the honed body beneath. This had once been the man of my dreams, the first man I ever gave myself to, and the first man to break my heart. But I’d known then that he was a heartbreaker, I’d just been too naïve to admit it to myself.

We’d been teenagers when our parents moved us all in together, tentative wedding plans in place. Drake had been a sneering, surly football hero at our high school and I’d been the dork in combat boots and dark sweaters. I’d loved him from the first moment I saw him with his curly blonde hair that he kept short, clear grey eyes and a well-muscled body on a frame that was over six feet tall. It had been his eyes, the buried hurt expressed as anger or arrogance that had drawn me in. A hurt little boy missing his dead father who had to pretend to be a man.

For a year I’d adored that face, making excuses for the insults he slung my way, telling myself he was a football player and I was the studious bookworm; he couldn’t let his friends know he loved me. In private moments, he could be tender, almost loving, but in public I knew we both had roles to play. And he was all but my step-brother; we had to keep it a secret.

Alright, so I’d built up this entire scenario in my head from a moment when he brought me soup his mother made when I was sick. And from a moment of extreme awareness when I came out of the shower in only a towel and he was on the other side of the door when I opened it. He wasn’t supposed to be home but he’d come early from football practice and I’d been standing there, wrapped in only that towel.

Even then I’d been well-developed with breasts that the other girls in school envied, even though I wasn’t eager to display my body. I looked like some of the women I’d seen in magazines, a slim waist with full hips and breasts, a pretty face but I didn’t care about any of it. I just wanted to read, to learn, to fill my brain with knowledge. And marry Drake.

He’d stood there with his mouth hanging open, his eyes moving up from my feet, pausing at the hem of the towel that barely covered my girly bits before moving up to my cleavage still dotted with droplets of water. He’d said my name as his eyes darkened, his hand reaching out to me but I’d heard his mom calling my name.

I’d felt my heart pounding, my feet frozen in place as he stared at my pale skin, and I’d been about to step into that hand, about to fill his palm with my breast when his mom called out. Her voice broke the spell and we both blinked, stepping away from each other hurriedly, going our separate ways. We had avoided each other until Amelia and I graduated. He’d come home from his freshman year of college to see his sister and me, the same age, graduate.

I’d seen him as I walked off of the stage, his eyes wide as he looked at me. I’d made an effort to look like a girl, my hair done and makeup on. He’d found me later at the party our parents threw, and we’d been unable to control what had been building through glances and unspoken words over the last year.

He was gone the next morning and I’d gone off to college, heartbroken but wiser. A night of passion, the night I’d dreamed of spending in his arms, had been all that I’d hoped it would be. I suppose he’d had a lot of practice with college girls because he’d loved me like he was worshipping me, with a skill I’d never expected. My knees were still shaking the next morning when I’d fumbled my way out of the bed we’d made in my old treehouse to find he’d already gone off camping with his buddies.

I’d waited, certain he’d come back, but our parents had split up not long after that and I’d not seen him again. He’d been drafted into the NFL and his life was something I couldn’t even dream of. Amelia and I had remained friends. But now he was in front of me and a million memories, a thousand questions, plagued me.

All I could do was stand quietly, my heart pounding as I forgot to breathe. But this time, it was with the knowledge of how he felt between my thighs and how easily he’d broken my heart. A wiser woman stood before him now, I wasn’t that silly teenaged girl anymore.

“Hardly, tell Amelia I brought her dress. Bye Drake.” I spoke simply, without inflection. I wasn’t going to fall all over myself to gush over him. He wasn’t worth it.

“I see you’ve barely changed, Bethany. Still beautiful. Still cold.” His full pink lips were smiling at me, as though he knew he was making my pulse race, waiting for the adoration just beneath the surface. He could wait for the mountains to crumble before I would do that again though.

“It’s been six years, Drake, not twenty. I’m a little older, a little wiser, but it’s not been long enough for me. See you around.”

“Bethany, wait!” He called out to me as I reached for the door knob.

Something in his honey-smooth voice made me pause. I hated myself for it but I couldn’t make my feet move.

“Let me take you out to dinner tonight. I’d like to catch up with you.” I turned back, that suit drawing my eyes to all the right places and I wanted to say yes in that moment but squashed it.

Looking at him I put my own sneer on my face and looked at him dismissively.

“I think we burned that bridge long ago, don’t you?” My words were cold and should have shut him down instantly.

“Oh come off it, Bethany. We’ve always wanted each other. We’re adults now. I’m alone; we can go upstairs for a quick trip down memory lane. You know you want to.” His tone was teasing, tempting, and I smiled at him, moving closer to his chest.

Placing a finger on a button of his shirt I toyed with the plastic, giving him a smoldering look and a sexy grin.