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He flashed a brilliant smile and then rolled over on top of me, pinning me to the bed. “I thought you liked my abilities,” he said with a smirk. “Of course, if you need convincing, I’ll be happy to demonstrate. You did say I was a professional baller,” he teased.
I’d been crying and so knew I wasn’t very sexy in that moment, but Chase’s adoration always made me feel like the center of the universe. “I’m sort of yucky right now. I’m stuffed up.”
“Hold up,” he said and then pushed up off the bed, went into the bathroom and came back with an inordinately huge wad of toilet paper and handed it to me. “Here, Monkey.”
I took and pulled a few sheets off and set the rest on the nightstand next to the bed. Chase started peeling off his T-shirt and undoing the front of his jeans, all the while his sexy gazed was trained on me, even as I blew my nose.
“Ugh,” I complained. “Sexy, right?”
“Always,” he said, with a smile, climbing onto the bed from the foot, to straddle my knees and begin pulling my leggings and thong down. “The sexiest woman in the world. It’s safe right now, isn’t it?” he asked. My periods were like clockwork and he was well aware of the cycle and when we needed protection.
All I could do was nod. I couldn’t get pregnant when I already was. I watched his muscles move as he undressed me, my eyes skirting over his broad shoulders and muscular torso, his pecs, and abs clearly defined. I reached out because I wanted to touch him, but my arms weren’t long enough. It would have been safe, but either way, a condom wasn’t needed.
His denim-clad knee moved between mine, and he spread my legs wide with his thighs before settling down on top of me again and finally, my hands slid over smooth, hard flesh. He was so strong: his movements were smooth and deliberate. I could feel his erection pressing into me in just the right spot, despite his half-state of dress.
“Now, I’ve got you,” he murmured sensually, as his mouth came down hungrily on mine, his tongue finding mine in a slow, desperate dance. His hands began to roam my body, careful to graze all of my pleasure centers. His curled fingers brushed down the side of my body and he slid his hand beneath me to angle my hips up so he could tease me with soft thrusts, echoing the delicious rhythm of our kisses. Every touch was magic and my heart and body opened. I wanted him to dissolve right into me because as close as we were, I wanted more.
I moaned impatiently as I pushed at his jeans to get them over his hard butt, one foot trying desperately to hook the fabric and drag it down. Chase’s breathing increased as heat and an aching pulse began to increase between us.
My love for him was overwhelming and it always surprised me. It didn’t matter if he was inside of me, or we were just talking, or I was watching him play or have a conversation with Jensen or one of his other friends, he consumed my soul. There was nothing I wanted more than being with him. “Chase,” I said his name like a prayer when he finally pushed inside my slick heat, and it was to me. “Mmmm…”
“You’re so beautiful, Teagan. I love you, so much.”
He was so perfect, and I couldn’t imagine ever wanting someone more than Chase. I’d do anything for him; even let him go… but just for a little while.
“I love you, more.” My heart squeezed with the intensity of it, as my body pressed up to meet his, and my hands fisted in the silky strands of his hair.
His kisses paused for an instant and I felt his lips lift in a smile. “Let’s call it a tie.”
TEAGAN
The world was ending.
Remi was getting worse. She’d been so brave, but the leukemia was taking its toll on her little body. Her little arms and legs were bruised, she had headaches, trouble breathing, she was weak and so thin. It was all the hospital staff could do to keep her eating.
No mother expects to watch her child die, and I couldn’t stand to think it might happen, but my training as an RN and the consults with the doctors made reality difficult to ignore. After two rounds of chemotherapy last summer, she went into remission, but it was back again. I dreaded telling her she’d have to go through it again. She was young but could remember how awful it was. There is nothing worse than watching your child suffer.
Childhood leukemia typically had better remission and cure rate than adult onset, and the doctors were on board to keep at it, but looking at my poor little baby girl, so small in her hospital bed, shivering, rolled up on her side, and holding the stuffed elephant she named Bennie, tight to her chest as she slept; I wasn’t so sure. I felt selfish to put her through it.
I moved to the bed and crawled onto it and curled my own body around my sleeping daughter, closing my eyes as tears flooded them. I felt sick inside. Jensen was out of town covering a game as one of ESPN’s star correspondents, and that was another problem I didn’t want to deal with. He was a good man; one who had stepped up when I needed someone, but our marriage was never what he wanted. We tried to keep it together, and he loved Remi like his own child, but our marriage was empty and we both knew it.
It seemed that my special gift was causing pain to all of the men in my life, and there wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t consumed with regret. I wished I could jump in a time machine and make a different decision.
I gathered Remi closer and listened to the softness of her breathing, taking comfort in the sound and hoping the warmth from my body would seep into her and ease her shaking.
Fucking leukemia! My mind railed.
This wasn’t the first time that I’d wondered if her illness was the price that had to be paid for the sins of the past, and I railed at the unfairness that she would be the one to suffer. I’d lay down my life right now if I could take it from her.
My phone was stuffed into the back right pocket of my jeans and started vibrating on my butt. I reached for it and quickly glanced at the screen without moving away from Remi. It was Kathryn, Chase’s sister. Somehow we’d managed to remain friends after the disaster, but it was just another secret that weighed on me. Just seeing her name on the screen brought Chase rushing back into my mind and heart, not that Remi’s condition hadn’t had me thinking about him twenty-four/seven anyway.
As the years passed, I got better at pushing the pain down and hiding it from others, but it was always there, eating away at my soul like a disease. I’d learned not to talk about it, and I’d gotten past the daily bouts of tears, but I still thought about Chase every single day.
I sucked it up for Jensen’s sake; the man who’d sacrificed his friendship with Chase and put his whole life on hold to save mine. Still, it was hard to paste on a smile and pretend I was okay when I wasn’t. I was plodding through life; my only real purpose had been raising and taking care of Remi. After she was born, there was some happiness and things were easier because she engulfed my world, yet every time I looked at her, I saw him, and it was like a knife carving a new wound in my heart. Two years ago, she got sick and once again, we were all enveloped in misery. My first instinct was to call Chase, but Jensen and I had a huge fight about it, and guilt won out in the end.
So time ticked on and I was certain my soul was damned, but it was clear I was already paying the interest. It was a struggle to get up in the morning and put one foot in front of the other, but what else could I do? I had to put Remi first and I did my best to keep her happy and laughing as much as possible to keep her focus off of her illness.
The whole thing was such a fucked up mess, like a snowball rolling down the side of a cliff, the lie kept growing and growing. After Chase left and my father found out I was pregnant, all hell broke loose when he vowed to smear Chase’s name all over the headlines. He was more concerned about his political career than what would happen to me and threatened to hurt Chase’s reputation. God forbid the scandal of a state senator’s daughter getting knocked up by a professional soccer player who left her high and dry. That’s how it would have landed on the headlines and his professional career could have been ruined before it even began. What started out as a decision to do what was best for Chase turned into a nightmare, and I was trapped. Ugh! It still made me sick to think about it.
