Fall With Me (Playing For Keeps Book 4)

One of the best perks of this job is, by far, that I get paid to listen to porn.

Okay, so, it’s not exactly like that. First of all, it’s not porn. It’s romance with explicit, dirty, downright filthy sex. Second, I get paid for plane travel, and that time is mine to do with it what I please.

Sometimes, like tonight as we fly home to Vancouver, that means apartment hunting on my laptop, while the grumpy mafia don, playing through my headphones, shouts at everyone to get out of his office so he can bend his mouthy wife—an arranged marriage, obviously—over his desk and fuck the submission into her because she came to his office wearing a low-cut top and miniskirt just to piss him off.

“This one’s nice,” I murmur to myself as Dante grips a fistful of Gia’s hair and tells her to get on her knees. I click through the one-bedroom apartment, pretending my nose doesn’t wrinkle at the brown water stains on the walls in the bathroom, or the one above the bed. Gia takes Dante as far back as she can as I find another apartment, this one more expensive but somehow worse than the last.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch someone stand, their wide frame taking up the aisle. My gaze rises to Jaxon as he strolls toward me. Hazel eyes lock on mine, and when he flicks my shoulder, I jam my elbow into his thigh. It’s a weird game we play on road trips, like we barely know each other. Sometimes we don’t speak at all, just share these little moments of peace. Many of them occur postgame in the local bar, where I watch him get hit on by woman after woman, and he watches me flirt with whoever I feel like flirting with just because I kinda like having all of Jaxon’s attention, and that always ensures I have it.

The weirdest part, though, is having a space all my own for those couple of days. The only time I’ve spent living by myself is the single week in Vancouver before my apartment turned into the Lost City of Atlantis. I’m supposed to be learning how to be by myself, being totally and completely independent. Lately, though, I’m struggling with the notion of whether it’s more important to be able to stand on your own, or to have someone at your side you rely on, someone to step in, hold you up when you need it. Ryne held me up when I needed it, but as the years went on, he started throwing it back in my face as often as he could. If I could’ve done it on my own, I would have. I needed him.

I turn the volume up on my headphones, because I’d rather listen to Gia ask Dante for permission to swallow his load than think about Ryne.

“Oooh,” I hum, clicking on a listing for a one-bedroom plus den apartment in a duplex. It’s a little outside my budget, and farther than I’d hoped, but the kitchen is roomy, there’s space for me to spread out my photography, and the bathroom has a ceiling. I start typing out a request to view the apartment, but stop when an exceptionally large shadow falls over me.

One perfect, corded, tattooed arm grips my thigh, and I slip out an AirPod as Jaxon’s chin dips to my shoulder, his tongue flicking over the split in the center of his lip. He got in another fight tonight. I thought my heart stopped when I watched him fall to the ice after taking a dirty hit from behind, but then he leapt to his feet, chased after the jerk, and three minutes later when Jaxon skated off the ice, knuckles and mouth tinged red, I had to stop by the beer kiosk for a cup of ice. I seriously don’t know what’s wrong with me. Watching Jaxon turn into an animal on the ice does something filthy to me. And the bruise forming beneath his left eye? The icing on the cupcake.

“What are we looking at, tidbit?”

God, this new nickname is driving me up the wall. I never thought I’d see the day I’d be begging for honey.

“New apartments, so I don’t have to hear you call me tidbit one more time, or see your tidbit again.” I aim a pointed look at his crotch.

Something flits through his eyes, and he spins my laptop toward him, ignoring my funny joke about his tiny cock, which is actually not at all tiny; he knows it and I know it. “Lemme see.”

“Can you just—ugh.” I scowl, jerking my laptop back. “You’re so bossy.”

“Yeah.” He slips by me, plopping down in the empty seat next to me, scooping up my cheetah-print neck pillow and slinging it around his neck. “Show me.” He steals my Sour Keys off my tray, winking at me as his sucks one into his mouth. “Don’t make me wait, honey.”

I narrow my gaze, and when I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off, he shoves a Sour Key between my lips. I hook my pinky through the little hole, sucking on the treat as I flip back to the apartment listings, starting with the shittiest one so the best one looks like a dream by the time I get there.

“So, there’s this⁠—”

“No.”

“Jaxon, you can’t⁠—”

“Len, are you kidding me? There are fucking brown stains on the ceiling! You’ll be back living with me in a week when your ceiling collapses all over again!”

“Okay, well—” I navigate to the second one. “This one’s nicer.”

“It’s worse. How is it worse? It’s more expensive; that makes no sense.” He jabs my screen. “There’s a literal hole eaten through the wood of this cupboard. You like mice? ’Cause Mitts isn’t gonna be there to save you from them.”

A growl rumbles in my chest, so I go for the big guns, the best one. “Here. There’s nothing wrong with this one, and there’s even a little office space for me.”

He scans the screen, looking for something to complain about as he covers my hand with his, forcing my finger to click through each picture. Then, he sits back, and simply says, “Nah.”

“Pardon me?”

“It’s too far from the arena.”

“You know, it’s the oddest thing but they have these things called automobiles. Invented way back in the eighteen hundreds. Yeah, they’re super great for getting around.”

Jaxon watches me, knees waving in and out as he sucks on his Sour Key. “There’s mold.”

“No there isn’t.”

“It’s small.”

“It’s cozy.”

He rolls his eyes. “Another word for small.”

“I don’t need a big space, Jaxon. It’s just me.”

He taps his finger on my tray. Instead of arguing with me, he asks, “What are you listening to?” and then promptly steals my AirPod, sticking it in his own ear. “Jesus fuck,” he screams, tearing the bud out, leaping to his feet. “That’s-that’s-that’s—” He points at me with a shaking hand. “Gia . . . Gia . . .”

“Gia’s getting fucked six ways to Sunday.” She’s also got a thumb in her bum, because Dante just told her every single one of her holes belongs to him, but that’s neither here nor there.

“You were sitting next to me, on a plane filled with people, looking at apartments, while listening to that?”

“Multitasker is on my résumé.”

He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes. “I have to scrub my eyes out.”

“Why? Did they figure out how to hear sound?”

Hazel eyes narrow. “You’re so fuckin’ annoying, I swear to God.”

“Like I said before, Jax, annoying must be your type.”

He shakes his head, climbing out of the row. Halfway up the aisle, he stops and turns back to me, scratching the back of his head. “I’m just . . . I’m not kicking you out or anything. ’Kay?”

My eyes move between his, searching for the lie. When I don’t find it, I nod. “’Kay.”

“Jaxon!” Carter shouts from his seat, holding up a deck of cards. “You coming?” His gaze comes to me. “Actually, Len, you know how to play euchre? Jaxon sucks; we can ditch him for you.”

I do, actually, but I’m 99 percent sure Jaxon has a complex about being replaceable, so I pout, shaking my head. “Sorry.”

“You can still hang with us if you want.”

“Thanks, but—” I hold up my laptop, hoping it’s answer enough. I’ve infiltrated every part of Jaxon’s life, and he’s handled it relatively well. I’d rather not take this time from him. Plus, I like watching him interact with the guys.

Like right now, as he takes a seat with Carter, Garrett, and Emmett around a table, starts bickering with Garrett about who has to partner with Carter, leans over to check in with Adam about what book he’s reading tonight. There isn’t a single conversation he doesn’t try to participate in, and he’s not shy about starting them either, like he’s trying so hard to get to know them, to make himself a permanent fixture in their lives. And yet, when the questions come back to him, he offers next to nothing, shaking his head, shrugging, playing it off like his life is boring.

I watch him for a moment, his grin so big as he takes the first euchre hand, pulling the cards in front of him, high-fiving Emmett. There’s something so boyish about him like this, an innocence that pulls me in. It lives in the light of his eyes, behind the giddiness of his smile, like he’s just … grateful to be included. It makes me as happy as it does sad.

He looks up, catching my eye, and I’m almost irritated at the way he immediately looks away, picks up his phone.

Until an iMessage pops up in the center of my laptop.

Magic Mike

Take a picture, honey. It’ll last longer.

I look up, flipping him the bird. His grin widens, and when he winks, I hide my smile behind a Sour Key. Navigating back to my email, I stare at it for a minute, contemplating Jaxon’s words.

There’s no rush.

But isn’t there? He hasn’t left with a single woman postgame, despite all the women that try with their whole chest. And he’s certainly not bringing anyone home. The bottom line is I’m cramping his style. Isn’t it best I leave before I overstay my welcome?

The thought alone makes my head hurt, but since Jaxon promised he’s not kicking me out anytime soon, I close the email, then the apartment listings. At the very least, I have a little more time to find something better suited and within my price range. With that in mind, I recline my seat, pop my AirPods back in, turn the volume up, and google where to see the Northern Lights near Vancouver. I open the number one hit, but before I have a chance to appreciate the stunning hues of deep blues, teals, and greens, a FaceTime request from PIECE OF MOTHERFUCKING SHIT takes over my screen, and I scream, throwing my laptop to my feet.

“Len?” Jaxon’s on his feet in a heartbeat, the other boys following.

“It’s fine.” I wave my arms around, shooing them back to their seats. “I thought I saw a spider.”

“Spider?” Garrett shifts himself behind Adam. “I don’t like spiders. Nothing needs that many legs.”

Carter’s chest puffs. “I can get it.”

“Nope, it’s totally fine.” I force a smile, hitting the decline button as I scoop up my laptop and sit back down. “It was just a piece of garbage.”

The boys fall back to their seats, but Jaxon hesitates. I give him thumbs-up and another forced smile before looking away, because sometimes I think he’s secretly really great at reading me, and I’d rather he didn’t right now.

So when PIECE OF MOTHERFUCKING SHIT calls again, I decline it in an outwardly calm manner while the fiery depths of hell boil and rage inside me.

The third time, my eye starts twitching, and the fourth time, my fingernails leave gouge marks in my palms.

The fifth time he calls, this time audio only, I smash the accept button and whisper-scream, “What?” at my laptop.

“Oh, wow,” Ryne’s whiny voice murmurs through my ear buds. “The queen has finally graced me with her voice.”

“I’m gonna grace your balls with my fist if you don’t stop calling me.”

He chuckles, and it’s as patronizing as it’s always been. “You always did beg for rough sex.”

I grit my teeth, then run my palm over my face when Jaxon’s eyes flick to me. “Goodbye.”

“Are you on a plane right now?”

“Did you not hear me? I said goodbye. That means this conversation is over.”

“I heard you took a job with a hockey team.”

“So you heard that but you didn’t hear me say goodbye?”

“You fucking the players, Lenny?”

My knee bounces, and I curl my shaking fingers into a fist. “Yes. All of them. Sometimes at the same time. You fuck the wait staff at our wedding?”

He chuckles, and I imagine his head imploding so that I don’t. “I didn’t fuck her that night.”

That night. I didn’t fuck her that night.

“You’re a piece of shit,” I whisper, and for fuck’s sake, will Jaxon stop fucking looking at me?

“Was I supposed to sit by and wait for you to come to your senses and come home after your little hissy fit at our wedding rehearsal? Real mature, by the way, Lenny. My partners were there.”

I scoff, loud and disbelieving, because be for fucking real.

“You’re mistaken,” I mutter, hiding the words behind my hand when Jaxon’s eyes flare. “I don’t give a shit what or who you do. What you do with your life isn’t my business, because it’s not my life anymore.”

A message pops up on my screen, forcing me to breathe.

Magic Mike

U ok?

“Lennon. You’re my wife. You’re supposed to be my wife. My whole damn firm was there, watched you walk out on me like some melodramatic preteen. You embarrassed me. You can hardly blame me for seeking comfort somewhere else.”

Magic Mike

Len??

Who u talkin to?

Do I need to come back there and make heads roll?

Fuckin answer me honey or I’m coming back there.

“If you’re ready to apologize, sweetheart, I think we can move past this. We can get married at the courthouse, tell everyone we made up and eloped, and Grandmother’s said she can host an intimate celebration of one hundred guests until we can have a proper wedding in the summer.”

This entire thing is ridiculous, but it’s that his grandmother thinks a hundred people is an intimate celebration that tips me over the edge. “You’ve really lost it, haven’t y—wait a second.” I hold up a finger, replaying his words in my head. “If I’m ready to apologize? And just what the fuck do I have to apologize for?”

There’s movement in the cabin, sudden and heavy, and I glance up in time to see Jaxon leap to his feet. I appreciate the hell out of the fact that my frenemy roommate cares enough to come to my rescue, but goddammit, I’m so sick and tired of not being able to rescue myself.

I hold my hand up, stopping him in his tracks.

“Jesus, Lenny, you really don’t see that what you did was wrong? How immature and selfish it was of you?” Ryne chuckles, a sound of utter disbelief, absolutely flooring me with just how out of touch with reality he is. “I told you, those books you listen to only serve to plant unrealistic ideas in your head of what romance really is, of what it means to be a partner.”

“I’ve not ever been a partner,” I bite out. “I’ve been the pretty trophy on your arm. The story you tell to make you look like a family man. I’ve played every damn part you asked me to play to make you look good to people whose opinions shouldn’t matter, and somewhere along the way I forgot who I was, who I was supposed to be. So excuse me for chasing romance on paper when real life showed me none. Excuse me for escaping to a fantasy world where the idea that someone might love me so wholly, so obsessively, isn’t far-fetched.” I pause. “No, actually, excuse you for being such a selfish prick and depriving me of that. You’re a piece of shit, Ryne. Goodbye.”

I snap my laptop shut and tear my earbuds out, chest heaving as adrenaline courses through me, the words I’ve been dying to scream at him finally set free.

Jaxon hovers in the aisle, fists flexing at his sides. I’m too angry to talk to him right now, to reassure him that I’m fine, that he doesn’t need to fight anyone. He overheard more than I’d like, and it’s not something I’d ever planned on discussing with him.

The woman you fucked in Cabo was alone on her honeymoon because her fiancé, as it turns out, had no intention of being faithful to one woman for the rest of his life.

I’m not generally a self-conscious person, but being cheated on certainly has a way of bringing all your perceived flaws to the forefront of your mind, of making you feel more worthless of love than you’ve ever, ever felt.

That’s how I felt, at least, when Ryne accidentally butt-dialed Serena the night of our wedding rehearsal. Serena, whose phone was connected to the projector in the dinner hall, casting onto the giant screen as she prepared to share a slideshow of me from birth to twenty-six.

Except instead of photos of me, the fifty people enjoying their dinner at our wedding rehearsal got to listen to Ryne tell one of the waitresses that she was such a good girl for taking his cock so far back.

It’s not Jaxon I’m mad at. It’s not Jaxon I’m mad at. It’s not Jaxon I’m mad at.

The words have been on repeat in my head from the moment I slid into his passenger seat fifteen minutes ago, after stepping off the plane.

He hasn’t said a word to me, but I feel his eyes on me the entire drive home.

“Wanna watch the road?” I bark out.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, and I close my eyes.

It’s not Jaxon I’m mad at. It’s not Jaxon I’m mad at. It’s not Jaxon I’m mad at.

“Lennon?” Jaxon whispers into the dark car. “You okay?”

“Nope.”

“Do you wanna t⁠—”

“Nope.”

“’Kay.” He drums his fingers on the steering well, whistles what I’m almost certain is the tune of “Soft Kitty” from The Big Bang Theory. “So, listen, I’m normally really good at minding my business, but⁠—”

“He called to remind me I made the right decision.”

Jaxon pulls into his parking space. “And what’s that?”

“Starting over as far as possible from him.” I grab my bag, slam the door, and stalk toward the elevator. We ride in silence, greeted by more of it upstairs, and I hate every second of it. It’s after one a.m., so we can’t pick up Mittens until the morning. Right now, I’d like nothing more than to climb into bed and angry-cry myself to sleep with my face stuffed into the softness of his belly. Instead, I ditch my shoes at the door and march down the hall with Jaxon in tow.

“Lennon?” He pauses in his door, right before I can shut mine. “I think you’re funny and cool and you’re definitely the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in my entire life. You’re also strong and brave, and nobody is worth you feeling worthless.” Hazel eyes move over me, and the warmth that softens their edges heats me from my head to my toes, sends my pulse racing. “Don’t give him that power.”

He’s right. I know he’s right.

Power is something I rarely felt I had in all my years with Ryne. At first, I liked it. For a while, I even convinced myself it was what love was supposed to look like, feel like. Someone to look after me. Someone for me to follow. Giving Ryne the power he wanted felt like being shrouded in a safety blanket.

And then my feet got tangled. I lost my footing, stumbled my way through years of uncertainty, trying to remember who I was, becoming who I wanted to be.

Then I decided I wanted to take it back, all that power. And I did.

I took back my power when I left him, right then and there at our wedding rehearsal, in front of fifty guests, after catching him getting a blow job from one of the wait staff.

I took back my power when I fucked Jaxon in the bed I was supposed to be fucking my husband in.

I took back my power when I took this job and started all over again in another country.

Now I’ve had a taste for it, I want more. Need more. Crave it.

I think that’s the thing about power. You have to consciously decide you want it. That you want to feel it coursing through your veins as you take control of your life, your destiny. And you have to go after it.

Because this life is mine. The decisions I make are mine. I get to decide the way this life plays out. I get to decide what I want and how I chase it.

I throw open my bedroom door, heart slamming against my chest.

I don’t think twice before I fling Jaxon’s door open.

He glances over his shoulder, pausing in taking his shirt off. Something like understanding flickers in his eyes, and he turns toward me, slowly pulling his shirt over his head.

My throat runs dry at the sight of him, carved and tattooed muscles flexing as he moves toward me, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of his sweats, dragging them down his thighs. He steps out of them, tossing them over his shoulder in the hamper, all without taking his eyes off me, without faltering in his stalk toward me.

Fuck, he’s gorgeous. One of those people so beautiful it hurts to look at them.

But he makes me feel beautiful too. Desired. Craved. I’ve never once been worshiped the way he did so flawlessly that night in Cabo. It’s a high I’ve been chasing ever since I allowed myself one last glance at him, sleep rumpled in my bed, before I left him there.

My breath comes in uneven spurts, chest heaving, my hands trembling as his steps force me backward. He reaches behind me, and the sound of the door slamming startles me before my back collides with it.

Jaxon looms above me, and I swear I can see his pulse pounding in his neck, racing the same way mine is. One more step, and he’s pressed against me, the hard lines of his body grazing the soft edges of mine. He catches my shaking hand, his eyes falling to the connection. There’s that signature arrogance, the sharp quirk of his mouth, right there in the corner. He knows how desperately I need this. How desperately I want this.

Fingertips dance up my arm, across my collarbone, catching the lone spiral lying there, twirling it softly around his finger before letting it spring free. His gaze rises to mine, sparked with the same feral need buzzing through me.

A rough palm skates up my throat, gripping my jaw, tilting my face to his. “What do you want, honey?”

“You.”

He licks the corner of his mouth, right where a grin is starting.

“’Bout fuckin’ time” is all he murmurs before his mouth collides with mine.