Catching to Win (Over the Fence #3) (12 page)

W
hen the airport
taxi pulled into the driveway, I nearly broke the door off its hinges racing out. I hadn’t seen Kelsey in a week. I was on a high from winning the most prestigious college baseball series in the world. And I was horny.

I was getting her naked and on her back ASAP.

Except of course when I went stomping through the house like a bear just coming out of hibernation, she was nowhere to be found. Fuck.

I walked back to my room, head hung and dick overly hard. This was her fault. She’d turned me into this walking erection, and now she wasn’t around to help solve the problem.

Sniffing at my shirt, I smelled plane rankness and Omaha dirt. Gross. Maybe it was a good thing Kelsey seemed to be MIA at the moment, because I needed a fucking shower.

I was squeezing my all-in-one shampoo, conditioner and soap into my hand from the bottle when I heard the bathroom door open and shut.

“Parker, Jesus I’m in the shower. Are you deaf? You really couldn’t hear that. I told you last time, no pissing in here while I’m showering.”

“You let Parker take a leak at the same time you were naked, in the shower?”

That sultry, rough voice jolts me so hard that I drop the bottle. Ripping back the curtain, I’m greeted to the best sight I’ve seen in a week. And that’s after being handed the championship trophy.

Kelsey stood on the tile in jean shorts and a boyfriend-style white button up. Those red locks were crazy and wild, like she’d been running her hands through them all day. Her eye line dropped to my dick, which was still semi-hard thanks to not getting any relief earlier.

“Mind if I join you?” She toyed with the hem of her white button up.

“Why the fuck aren’t you in here yet?”

She moved like lightening unzipping her shorts and pulling her panties off with them. As she walked towards the shower she slowly started unbuttoning her shirt. And then she was stepping delicately in, the white material soaking through and revealing her hard nipples like cherries on top of all that whipped cream flesh.

“Jesus Christ…” I bite back a groan as I attacked her.

I caught her lush lips up in mine and slammed her body against the tile, cradling her neck and back with my hands. Our tongues tangled in an erotic fight while I nudged my cock into her thigh as hard as I could, seeking relief.

She came up for breath. “I guess this means you didn’t get any on the road, then?”

Sliding my hand down her side, over the swell of her breast and to the flare in her hips, I continue all the way down until I have two fingers inside her. There, that should answer her question.

“You know better than to ask that.” I work her clit over with my palm and hear the rough moan that rips from her throat. God, I missed her.

She digs her fingernails, as red as her hair at this present moment, into my back and I make a guttural noise at the pain.

“I missed you.” I whisper into her ears as I pump my thick fingers into her tight opening, drenching them in her moist excitement.

“I missed this.” Not exactly what I was dying to hear, but I know it’s as much as she can give me.

The white shirt that’s still hanging from her shoulders is soaked to her skin. She’s struggling to get it off as I build her up even further, her harsh cries echoing off the walls of the shower.

The hot water is cascading onto my impossibly hard dick, stinging my flesh because I’m so turned on. I want to be inside of Kelsey so bad it physically aches.

“Clint, I’m so close.” She’s whimpering now, and I feel like I’ve got the whole world in my hands. I control her, I stroke her to the highest peak. I’ve never been an overly dominant guy, but with Kelsey I find I want to own her body until she can’t remember anyone who has touched her body before my hands did.

I nudge her head, which was laying limply on my shoulders, up so that I can see those whiskey-colored eyes as she loses it. Kelsey’s gulping in breaths of warm air as I push my fingers into her so hard I feel like I must be hurting her.

But then her eyes dilate, her knees buckling until I have to grab her by the waist and pin her against the tile. She shudders and shakes, her signature move when she’s just about to drop on the proverbial roller coaster.

She lets out a wail, and I drink in the look of sheer pleasure on her face like it’s the elixir that will make me live forever. She’s beautiful and wild, and I thank my lucky stars that I’m the one that gets to do this.

“I can tell you really missed me…” Her grin is a cocky, dazed glow.

“You haven’t seen anything yet.” I shut her up when I grab behind both of her thighs, lifting her off the ground in one fell swoop.

“Wow!” She giggles the tinkling sound that is crack to my ears.

The giggles stop though as I slide her down onto my massive wood. I feel my cock spreading her apart and it’s all I can do to keep from sheathing myself all at once.

She feels like sliding into pure silk and rubbing up against velvety soft skin all at once. I have to clench all of the muscles south of my waist to keep a lid on the body-shredding orgasm threatening to let itself loose.

Kelsey wraps her legs tightly around my back and ass. “If you don’t start moving soon, I think I’m going to die.”

I take that as my cue. I slowly withdraw, pulling out until just my tip is lodged inside of her. Then I plow back in, driving into my hips and her ass slam together with a loud thwack.

“Fuck!” Her curse is ragged and harsh on her lips, and I capture them with mine to keep her quiet.

I keep the mind-bending, slow/fast pace until we are both trembling so hard on the precipice of coming. I bite at her neck, sure I’ll leave a bright purple hickey but not caring.

“Go harder. Please.” Her request is a plea. I can feel her body shaking violently against my hot, wet skin. Her hair is stuck to her neck in the humid shower, and the temperature has caused her porcelain cheeks to take on a rosy hue.

I hold on tight, readjusting my grip under her perfect, round ass. And start to jackhammer. I’m driving so hard into her body that it’s like I’m trying to make an imprint of her figure in the tile.

“Yes, yes, yes…” Kelsey’s chanting, spurring me on like I’m rounding the bases and feet away from sliding into home.

“Ahhh!” Her harsh moan as she starts to come zaps all of my control, and I’m pouring into her as my vision temporarily goes black.

I must blackout for a second, because when I focus back in, Kelsey is rubbing my back and whispering unintelligible noises in my ear.

“Oh my god…” I flex my hips up into her again, feeling my sensitive cock give its last little twitch.

“Congratulations. On the championship I mean. Glad I could give you your victory present finally.”

“If that’s my victory present, I may just need to go into the majors so I can have this multiple times a week.”

“I think you just need to go away more often.” Kelsey giggles.

I stay silent, my heart flipping over in my chest thinking about the fact that she just hinted there might be a next time for this. Which to me suggests she could be thinking about the future.

D
orothy still thinks
she’s a cub. Hence why she’s trying to sit in my lap right now at 120 pounds. The giant baby. I can’t believe she’s grown so much in almost two months. She’s now an adult cat, almost ready to be a mama herself when the preserve can find her a mate.

As much as I don’t want her to grow up, I’m glad that she is healthy and safe here. That we can breed her to make more babies for this species that is so in danger of extinction.

When I think about that — that some of the animals I love — could be completely wiped off of the planet, it makes me want to lose my lunch all over my shoes. How people hunt these innocent, beautiful creatures for sport, for fun, it makes me want to commit murder.

In Africa there had been a night when poachers had snuck onto the reserve and were targeting one our teenage elephants. A beauty named Theodore, they’d tried to shoot and kill him to sell his tusks on the black market. I remember being ushered into one of the safe zones, part of the protocol on the grounds. We had to wait hours for security to find them, and I was sweating and crying the entire time. I couldn’t take it thinking that I might hear a rifle blast at any point.

Finally, they did find them and the two men were taken into custody. I still wish the head of security would have let me land a few punches.

Dorothy nudges me, clearly annoyed that I have stopped petting and giving her attention.

“You spoil the animals like that and they won’t ever adapt to being around others of their kind.”

The prissy voice freezes my motions, and when I look up, there stands my mother.

“What are you doing here?” The words sound violent as they leave my throat.

Madeline removes her gloves, which are totally unseasonable and unnecessary for this North Carolina summer, but which totally make her look like some movie villain. “I know you don’t want to see me Kelsey Elizabeth…”

“Hmm, and here I thought you didn’t know how to take a hint and take a hike!”

She narrows her glassy amber eyes. “No need to be rude. I hope we’ve raised you with some manners.”

“That would be pretty hard, considering I was left with nannies for more than half my life…”

“Enough! I know you don’t want to see me. But I keep trying to contact you or track you down. I know what happened in Africa wasn’t ideal in your world. I’ll admit that I never wanted you to find out that way. And I also never wanted to tell you this, but it seems you’ve left me no choice. Your actions these last six months have been completely unpredictable, and I just can’t have that on the preserves. As much as I’d like to keep you away, you keep moral up for both the employees and the staff. So I thought maybe this would give you some closure.”

Madeline O’Brien was standing in front of me wringing her hands. This could not be good. I had never seen this ice queen look nervous in my entire life. “What would give me closure, mother?”

“Well, I’m not quite sure how to say this to you. But…your father. Part of the reason I was so harsh with you in Africa well…Your father is not actually your father.”

I think I’ve misheard her. I must have.

“Excuse me?”

“He is not your biological father. The first year we were married, I—“

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I cut her off so fast. My head spun as I rose from my seated position in the dirt.

“Don’t curse at me, young lady…” She turns her nose up.

“I can say whatever the fuck I want. Since apparently, you don’t give two shits when it comes to me. You know, since you’ve kept the hugest secret of my life from me for 20 years!”

“Please, don’t be so dramatic. You’re making a scene.”

I laugh and it’s a maniacal wail. “God! Shut the fuck up, Madeline! Lose the ice queen bit. You weren’t even going to tell me, your own child, that the cold, hard man she thought was her father her entire life, actually isn’t? That there might be someone out there who is responsible for the warmth, the emotions that I have inside of me. Because clearly I didn’t get any of that from you. And apparently I got nothing from him.”

“For all intents and purposes, he is your father. He provides you with this life, gives you anything you might want…”

“It’s always about the status, the money with you people. I don’t care about any of that! Does he know? That he’s not my father?”

“Of course he knows. You don’t look a thing like him, Kelsey Elizabeth.”

I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to process and slow my heart that threatened to burst from my chest. “What about my real father, does he know?”

“Well, yes and he—“

“Stop.” I didn’t know if I was ready to know anything about him. For my entire life, I’d thought that these robots had brought me into this world. That my quirks were just luck, that my emotions and personality were things I’d crafted for myself.

The fact that there was someone out there who might have the same humor, the same fox-like nose? Did my real father like old John Wayne movies? Was he just as in love with animals as I was?

If so, I wanted to meet him.

But on the opposite side, what if he was worse? What if Hugo and Madeline looked like Mr. and Mrs. Brady compared to my real father? What if he was colder, meaner than the father I had known my entire life? I just couldn’t handle that. I’d been disappointed by the people who raised me, and I couldn’t add a third into the mix.

“Just go.” I spoke deadly quiet, but she’d be a fool not to hear the threat in my tone.

“I think you need to hear what I came to tell you.” She said this, but started replacing her gloves back onto her hands.

“If I ever want to know the entirety of this life-altering thing you made the decision to keep from me forever, than I will let you know. But for now, leave. Get out of my life, don’t contact me, and tell that man who was supposed to raise me as his own that I never want to see his face again.”

I heard her heels in the dirt as she walked away, not even bothering to plead with her own daughter to let her stay in my life. Typical.

Fur rubs at my chin, and I feel Dorothy snuggle up to me, allowing me to put my arms around her. I feel the tears come and feel them matte her fur. Big fat ugly sobs that wrack my body. Once they start, I can’t seem to stop them.

C
lint pushes
into me again with more force, the mattress frame hitting the plaster wall and probably making a dent.

"You like that?" He growls in my ear. I feel the steamy wetness from his breath as he buries his cock deep inside of me once more.

All of this should turn me on. My sex-on-a-stick fuck buddy/best friend is plundering my treasure trove. But sadly, I just can't get out of my own head. This isn't happening to me. It can't be.

I give a non-committal shrug and Clint looks hurt for a split second before pulling out and flipping onto his back.

"Ride me." His long, lean body takes up most of his king size bed. Sweat glistens on those abs I usually like to lick, and his massive stiffy sticks straight up, waiting to be mounted.

I comply, psyching myself up and trying to focus on the sapphire eyes piercing my body right now. My thighs straddle his, and they're so big that my knees barely touch to the bed I'm spread so wide. I let myself slide down as Clint grabs my hips, digging his fingers in, and we both gasp at the fullness.

"It’s your saddle, cowgirl. Show me what you can do."

Damn, he's even taking dirty talk to the next level to get me to come. I appreciate his effort, but as soon as I grind myself back and forth a couple times, I know it’s not going to happen.

I hang my head as I prop my hands up on his chest. "This never happens. Fuck."

I'm fully aware I sound like a teenage boy unable to get any wind in his sails. But it just doesn't. I always come during sex, whether it’s with the help of my partner or not. I've never had a problem. Then again, I've never not been able to focus on the one thing I'm really, really good at.

"What can I do?" Clint senses my distraught.

"Talk to the orgasm gods and tell them to give me mine back?" I joke as I collapse onto his chest, his dick still fully buried inside of me.

"Well, it seems like you've taken coming off of the table. What's up?" Clint's hand rubs up and down my back. He uses his other to brush my red locks from my eyes and tip my head up to look into his.

"I don't know!" I whine like a pissed off child. "I can't get out of my head. Believe me, I want to do you until we're both screaming from orgasmic bliss. But my fucking brain won't turn off."

He smiles, and I feel his tool twitch inside of me at the word orgasmic. I roll off of him, aware that I'm probably not helping by straddling his fully-hard member.

"What's on your mind?" Clint was always so patient with me.

"Nothing..." I huffed, crossing my arms over my very naked body.

He rolls up onto his side so that we were now laying face to face. Jesus, he is fucking hot. If only my vagina would detach from my brain. Clint raises on eyebrow, telling my silently to spill it.

"Ugh. I don't know. This whole year has just been a mess. With my family that is. If family is even the word for it. After Africa, I just thought I would never have to deal with my parents again. And then my mom came along today and dropped this huge fucking bomb on me. I’m talking Hiroshima type bomb. She has information, or someone has information, that could affect my life forever. And I just don’t know if I can handle it. Or if I even want to." Clint stroked his fingers up and down my arm as I talked, causing a wave of goosebumps to move down my flesh. "It’s just not fair. I didn't ask to be born with sucky parents."

Those aqua eyes filled with amusement. "Not getting what you want doesn't happen to you often, does it?"

I considered his words and shook my head. "No, not really."

He chuckled. "Life isn't fair, Roo. And lots of people looking at yours, they would be jealous as hell. Did you know that I grew up almost dirt poor?"

I'd suspected that Clint didn't come from a long line of Rockefeller's, but his words made my jaw drop.

He went on. "That's right. My mom and dad worked two or three dead end jobs to put Goodwill clothing on me and my brothers' backs and crappy food on our table. I slept on a couch for most of my teenage years. We ate whatever my parents could afford, which was usually crap fast food. Speaks volumes about the price of good nutrition in this country."

I hugged my body tighter. I wanted to reach out and hold Clint, but thought it would be too intimate. That would be something a girlfriend did.

"But you know what life did give me? A wicked good arm and the knack to read a baseball field. I changed what I could, my weight namely, but accepted where I came from. I accepted that my parents were always going to live the way they did, and I made peace with all of that. Out of anyone, I think you would understand that life is too short to hold onto things. Life is fucking unfair. But all you can do is change what you can, and let go of what you don't want."

An odd sensation rippled within the walls of my chest. Admiration? Compassion? Love. The word flitted across my brain before I could stop it. No. That's not what I felt for Clint. I loved him as a friend. That was it. This melting in my chest had nothing to do with the fact that he saw me right down to my soul. That he had just perfectly summed up the way I should view the world. I had to get out of here.

"Who knew you, the big dumb jock, was so wise?" I wink and sit up, searching the room for the oversize t-shirt he had pulled off my body half an hour ago.

"Kels, stay with me." Clint's eyes begged me, his whole body strained toward me like he might make a grab for me as I tried to escape.

"I'm tired, dude. Need my beauty rest." I plastered my panty-dropper grin on my face. "I'll make this up to you, promise."

I heard him mutter, “I don't care about the sex," as I scampered from the room like a coward.

Once I was back in my makeshift room, I face-planted onto the bed. I was such a stupid fucking chick. Catching feelings for a dude I was hooking up with? No matter who he was, friend or not, this was not acceptable. As my mother said, unconditional, everlasting love doesn't exist. I wasn't taking any chance ending up like the two monsters who had created me. Or ruining Clint because of my fucked up view on love. No, thank you ma'am.

I needed to end this with him. It had gone on long enough. Almost two months hooking up with the same guy. No other screwing around? That was practically a relationship in itself to me. And even if there was a way we could be together, I knew I would inevitably screw it up. I had no head space to add my first official boyfriend to the list as well.

But to stay friends, I had to convince him this was his idea. That we should go back to the mainland of Friends and leave the island of Benefits. And I think I had just the way.

I
'm
in the kitchen the next day making a snack plate for Clint and I's Netflix marathon when Parker walks in.

"Hey, dude.” I try to act friendly.

Parker gives a non-committal sound and slinks over to the sink. Marnie struts in and begins to rub up against his legs. Traitor.

"Or not." I mutter to myself. I was getting sick of his bitchy attitude.

"Why are you still here?" He turned around and basically spat at me.

Well, well, well. I'd flicked the sleeping beast. The devil on my shoulder winked at me and laughed. I was not-so-secretly loving this.

"Um...I live here?"

He slammed the plate he was cleaning down on the counter. "Actually, you don't. You've been freeloading off of us for six months and fucking with my best friend's head. But no, you don't live here."

My mouth was so wide that if a fly threw down my throat, I probably wouldn't notice. What the fuck had he just said to me?

"Excuse me? Owen and Clint have no problem with me being here. And I carry my weight. Making dinner for you all, cleaning up, and paying my share of the utilities. And if you're jealous that your roommate is getting ass and you're not...well then I don't know what to tell you. Use your hand. Or maybe perk up a bit and some girl will want to fuck you."

Parker starts laughing his head off like I'm the best female comedian in all of Grover. I shift uncomfortably. I do not like being the butt of jokes. I hate the sensation of someone teasing or schooling me, because it didn't happen often.

"Are you blind or just dumb? Or just really selfish. My best friend,
Clint
, is not simply getting ass from you." He uses his fingers as air quotes when he says getting ass. "Have you even taken the time to ask why he lost all of the weight? Probably not since the world revolves around you. Especially his world. From the day you stepped foot in this house two years ago, he's been batshit crazy, head over heels in love with you. Anyone with a pea for a brain can see it. Christ, Kelsey he bought you a fucking kitten! And you're a bitch for exploiting his feelings just so he can be the next notch on your very long bed post. So yes, excuse you, you freeloading piece of crap."

If my mouth was wide before, my jaw had now definitely detached and was laying somewhere by my feet. Shame and heat crept through my system in a slow burn, and a lump of unshed tears formed at the back of my throat.

"What do you mean 'Why he lost the weight?'" It was the one thought I was allowing to penetrate my brain. The rest of Parker's insults were too raw for me to take right now.

He had turned back around and spoke over his shoulder without addressing me. "Seriously? The first time you met at that party when you girls were still in high school? He was like a puppy following you around, and you wouldn't give him the time of day. Eventually you let him into the friend zone, but even then you didn't give him a passing glance if some guy with a six-pack was nearby. He wanted to be good enough. For you. Lord knows why. That's why he's been eating grass and doing two-a-days in the gym until he almost passes out. So that you would finally look at him."

Parker looked back at me in disgust. "Guess it worked. Your shallow self took notice finally.”

I felt like I'd been whacked upside the head with a two-by-four. He changed who he was, what he looked like, for me? I backed out of the kitchen, away from Parker and his scathing accusations.

Clint called out from his room. "Be there in two seconds Roo!"

Shit. I couldn't sit there and have a movie night with him. I ducked into the bathroom and tried to get my breathing under control.

Was I really that bad of a person? Parker spoke to me like I was worse than scum, and right now I definitely felt like it. He was right. I hadn’t taken notice of Clint, not in a sexual way, until he looked like he did now. I had put him in the friend zone, only allowing him to be of best friend status when I was in Africa. And so he’d changed. He’d killed himself to get me to notice. I was such a bitch.

And was I really too blind to notice that he was in love with me? Of course I wasn’t. Deep down I’d known it all along. Guys like Clint didn’t do hook ups and friends with benefits. He’d been trying to turn this into something permanent from the start, and I’d been too selfish to cut him loose, let him down at the beginning. Secretly, I liked that he was in love with me. It meant I was a person that could be loved, at least by someone.

I splashed my face with cold water trying to calm down and get the tears to stop pricking my eyes. This was my mother’s fault. My whole screwed up family’s fault. Maybe if I hadn’t been raised by robots. If I hadn’t been lied to my entire life just because my mother didn’t believe in emotions. If I’d known my real father, if he’d been a decent person.

But I hadn’t had any of those things. And it had led me to be the fucked up person I was now; unable to get too close to someone to ever let them truly hurt me, or truly love me.

If it wasn’t evident I needed to cut this off before, it certainly was now. I took a deep breath, steeled myself and walked out to go shatter the heart of the one person in the world I might actually love.

Parker darted down the hall in front of me, threw me a bitchy glance, and walked out the front door. I knew Minka and Owen had gone home for the weekend to meet with his new agent. So it was just me and Clint. I already felt the guilt begin to roil in my stomach.

“Okay. James Bond or that movie about the guy who follows that band around with Kate Hudson?”

I smile. “Almost Famous? That movie rocks, I can’t believe you’ve never seen it. I used to dream that one day I’d become Penny Lane, going on tour with famous rock bands and making lead singers my bitch.”

Clint laughs. “That would be your idol.”

I bit my lip until I felt blood and then licked it away. I already despised myself for saying what I was about to. Might as well get it over with.

“So listen, I’ve been thinking…it’s time we put my teaching skills to the test.”

“Hmm?” Clint is only half listening to me as he sets up the TV.

“I think you need to fuck someone else.”

He stops, his sharp gaze coming up to meet mine. “If this is a joke, I don’t think it’s very funny.”

“It’s not.” I squirm. “I think you need to experience other things, and I’ve been a stellar teacher so, it’s time to let the baby bird fly free!”

I try to smile and act like this doesn’t feel like I’m taking a knife to my own heart.

“What the…where is this coming from? I don’t want to be with anyone else.”

“Oh come on, Clint, you can’t sleep with your best friend forever. Eventually we need to find you a nice girl to impress with your new moves.”

Clint’s face is pure anger now, his stubbled, sharp cheekbones flooding with color. “I have a girl right here that I happen to like a whole lot, and she seems impressed by my new moves. What’s this about, Kelsey? Let’s get to the truth of it. You always say honesty is the best policy, well let’s have it.”

I feel fragile, like if he raises his voice at me on more time, I might break. “Why did you lose all of the weight?”

Clint pales. And I know for certain it has something to do with me. “You didn’t do it for yourself, right? You were always fine like that before. Did you…did it have to do with me?”

He faces the TV, refusing to look at me. “Where would you get that idea?”

“Parker told me.”

“Fucking, Parker,” he mumbles. “Do you know you didn’t even give me two glances the first time we met? I had to go out of my way that entire first weekend to even get you to remember me? Do you know how hard it was to pester you until you finally even considered me a friend?”