Game On (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) (17 page)

              If I didn’t think fast, I’d be dead in a few seconds.

              Adrenaline kicked in as I swung from the now loose metal, and I kicked off the vertical pipe to push myself to a nearby window, catching onto the ledge and knocking over someone’s potted plant in the process. The time it took to crash on the ground told me just how high up I was.

              I glanced down. Danielle’s window was still a few rooms over. Simply dropping down wasn’t going to cut it, but I didn’t quite have enough space to get momentum and just swing over. However, something did catch my eye just below me: a mini air conditioning unit someone had placed in their window.

              Those things were liable to fall out on their own, and I knew there was no chance in hell it would support my full weight, but it would be all I needed. Once again, I heard shrieks from down below as I let go, letting myself freefall nearly a story, and my feet made contact with the air conditioning unit.

              But I was poised in my landing, and no sooner than I’d landed did I kick off again to the left, and the force of my kick both knocked the unit out of its window and propelled me to a window just below Danielle’s.

              The unit shattered to a hundred pieces on the sidewalk below, and sirens told me the real firefighters were on their way. But there were only a few feet between me and my goal now, and I wasn’t about to let anything stop me. Not the police, not the mafia, not even gravity.

              I reached up, hoisting myself up onto the ledge and taking hold of the bricks of the wall, starting to free-climb my way the rest of the distance, muscles in my arms and legs working in perfect unison like never before as I made each precise, calculated move, knowing a single slip-up meant certain death. But this was worth it. Danielle was worth it. I’d try to free-climb up a sheer cliff of ice for her.

             
I’m coming for you, baby.

              “We have to get out!” I cried, still bound to the chair by my ankles. The Italian food lay mostly untouched on the coffee table and Tony was looking around, bewildered, one hand scratching his stubbly chin. He was clearly not as concerned about the fire as I was.

              “Where is the fire? I don’t know where it could be coming from,” he thought aloud, shaking his head. Smoke was billowing into the room in ominous puffs and tendrils. I assumed the fire had to be on another floor or at least a different apartment, but either way, we were obviously still at immense risk.

              “It doesn’t matter where it’s coming from, Tony. It will spread to your apartment, too. I’m sorry, I know you probably have a lot of… stuff… here you care about but we can’t stay inside and just wait it out. That’s not how this works,” I explained, as calmly as I could manage. My voice was trembling and I felt my stomach churn with panic.

I hated fire. I’d always feared it. Even as a kid when my parents would light the fireplace around Christmas time I would give it a wide berth, terrified to even go near it to check my stocking hanging on the mantel. It was nice for my parents, I suppose, that they never had to worry about my accidentally burning myself. I wouldn’t even approach it. When I lit a candle it took me several tries because I would repeatedly get panicky at the sight of the little lighter flame and drop it. When it came to fire, I couldn’t even begin to be rational.

So knowing that there was a fire waiting to burst into the apartment and consume us was almost too much for me to handle. Not to mention the fact that I was tied to a chair and unable to move. Even though my hands were free, Tony had wrenched my legs so far back at a weird angle that I couldn’t properly reach down to untangle the knotted cords keeping me there. My captor was pacing back and forth in the living room, cartoons still playing in the background. I wanted so badly to chuck the TV across the room, make Bugs Bunny shut the hell up so I could think. This was
not
a good time to hear the Looney Tunes theme song.

Tony rushed to the window and looked down, his face going a little pale. He straightened up and turned around, shaking his head slowly. “No, no. Can’t leave. Too many people down there on the street, watchin’. The boss would kill me if anybody saw us together. The cops would take ya away and the Don would have my balls for it.”

“I swear, if you just untie me we can go down there together and I won’t scream. I won’t tell anyone you kidnapped me. We can-- we can just pretend we’re a couple or something,” I offered desperately. At this point, I hardly cared about the dire circumstances that had brought me to this crappy apartment in the first place. All that mattered now was getting out before the fire got to us.

Tony looked to be considering my suggestion for a moment, pursing his lips and rubbing his chin thoughtfully. I watched him impatiently, urging him to think faster and come to the right conclusion. Surely he understood how dangerous it was to stay cooped up here with the smoke slowly filling the room, didn’t he?

He shook his head again, letting his arms fall to his sides.

Apparently not.

“No, can’t risk it. The firefighters are here. They’ll put out the fire and we’ll just, uh, bunker down in here and wait, alright?” he answered, with an air of finality. My heart sank.

“Tony, no! We can’t stay here, it’s too dangerous!” I exclaimed.

He ignored me and walked into the kitchen to open a drawer and take out some dish towels. I watched him trudge over to the front door and start shoving the towels under the door crack to seal it as best he could. He did the same with the ventilation system, then walked over to open the windows. At least he was making an attempt at a game plan, even if it was definitely insufficient to keep us safe. I decided to try a different tack.

“If I die here, you won’t get your ransom payout, will you?” I piped up. Tony shrugged.

“If you die here, then I will, too. So I guess if I’m dead it won’t matter much to me whether they pay me or not, ya know?” he replied, with no trace of inflection in either direction. I stared at him blankly. He didn’t seem to care much if he lived or died.

But I did. I finally had something more than my career to live for. Kieran.

“Please, Tony. I’m begging you. We have to get out. I-I don’t want to die.”

He just kept ignoring me. Once he was finished securing the apartment, he simply sat down in his dumpy little chair and resumed watching cartoons as though nothing was going on. As though we weren’t about to burn to death. I didn’t want to die tied to a chair in some weird hostage situation with Bugs Bunny playing in front of me. I didn’t want “What’s up, doc?” to be the last words I ever heard on this planet.

Just as I was succumbing to despair, there was a strange sound from outside. Tony looked up, his dark brow furrowed in confusion. Then, to our shared astonishment, what looked like a human hand appeared at the window sill. There was a loud grunt and a muscular male body came catapulting into the room through the open window.

It was Kieran!

How the hell…

Tony looked just as shocked, unable to comprehend the fact that there was suddenly a strange man in his apartment, seemingly from out of nowhere. How had he gotten up here? We were on the eighth floor!

Kieran looked up at me from where he crouched on the floor, his blue eyes flashing with emotion. My mouth was still hanging open, my heart pounding wildly in my chest.

“Kieran,” I breathed. He gave me a mischievous smile. At that exact moment, Tony finally snapped back to reality and went barreling toward him with a roar. I let out a scream as the two men fell backward toward the open window, Kieran’s back pressed against the frame. He could fall to his death at any moment, and I wished more than ever that I could get up and move, do anything at all to help. But I was stuck, forced to watch helplessly as the man I loved grappled with my captor, both poised on the edge of certain death, while a fire threatened to burst in and destroy us all in one fell swoop.

And I knew, without a doubt, that it was true: I did love him. We hadn’t even known each other for very long, but it was apparent to me even through the cloud of panic in my mind. Kieran had my heart, for better or for worse.

He and Tony threw punches and swings at each other, scrabbling for dominance. Tony was shorter and less muscular, but he had years and years of experience in hand-to-hand combat. He was scrappy, and he didn’t fear death. That gave him two distinct advantages over Kieran. But the tall athlete wasn’t exactly at Tony’s mercy, either. They were fairly well-matched once I realized just how strong Kieran was as he knocked Tony to the floor, then ripped him back by the collar of his badly-tailored shirt and swung him around so that he stood between Kieran and the open window. Their positions switched, now Tony knew he was in trouble.

Even though he tried to take a sharp jab at Kieran’s face, the footballer managed to dodge it, then pushed Tony back slightly so that he was nearly leaning out the window. My heart stopped and I held my breath. For a moment, I feared that Kieran would actually do it: push my captor out the window to his death.

I had no doubt that he was angry enough to do it.

But after a moment of hesitation, he merely reeled back and punched Tony square in the nose, breaking it for probably the fiftieth time in the mafioso’s hard little life. The older man buckled and slumped to the floor, totally conked out.

Then Kieran raced to my side to untie my ankles. I looked down at him in utter awe and adoration, still unsure if this was real or just a very vivid dream. But once my ankles were free, he pulled me up and cupped my face in his hands, searching my eyes with his baby blues. He was so handsome, and he had saved me, again.

“Oh god, Kieran, I was so afraid. I-I thought I would die without getting to tell you this…” I began. “I love you.”

His beautiful face broke into a winning smile. “I love you, too, but you probably already knew that.”

He leaned in and kissed me passionately, his arms enfolding me in a tight embrace. I breathed in his scent, his warmth, feeling my own body melting into his. This was where I belonged, and I knew I would never find a home as natural and welcoming as the one I found in his arms. Vaguely, in the back of my mind, an alarm bell still rang to remind me that there was a very near and present danger in the form of a fire that I should pay attention to. Finally, I ripped myself away from Kieran to look up at him in fear.

“The fire! We have to go!” I gasped. I knew I was in love, for sure-- nothing less than true love could ever make me forget about a
fire
.

Kieran gave me a sheepish look. “There is no fire, Dani. But I’ll explain that when we get out of here. Fire or not, there’s still a conked-out mafia thug in the room. Let’s get out before he wakes up and causes us any more grief.”

He grabbed my hand and led me away, the two of us bolting down the hallway, down the stairs, and out into the free air.

              “Are you sure she’ll like this place?”

              “Dani.”

              “I just want to make the best impression I can, what if she doesn’t like sushi?”

              “Dani.”

              “I’m not overdressed, am I?”

              “Dani!”

              “What?”

              I took her in my arms as I laughed, kissing her on the forehead while she looked up at me with a decidedly nervous expression. I’d been reassuring her all day that meeting my mother for dinner was going to be the easiest thing in the world, but Danielle had managed to find every opportunity to be a nervous wreck about it.

A full week had passed since the kidnapping and rescue, and we’d wasted no time in taking every last minute to spend together. Now, I thought it was time she met my mom, and she was worrying over every last detail. Knowing her, I’d be surprised at anything else, though.

              “Just be yourself,” I assured her, “if I know the real Danielle, there’s nothing you could do that won’t make her fall in love with you.”

              “Yeah but,” she started, and I raised my eyebrows at her.

              “No buts. Now come on, that’s her car there,” I said, nodding to Carter’s car as it approached, and we made our way over to meet the three.

              “Look at you!” Mom exclaimed before she’d even gotten a chance to let me help her out of the car, and she immediately threw her arms around Danielle, who returned it with a relieved look over Mom’s shoulder at me. Carter and Anna got out of the car next, and we exchanged friendly embraces and warm greetings.

              “Mom, this is Danielle,” I said proudly, beaming as she squeezed her tight.

              “Oh, my dear, I’ve heard just so much about you,” Mom said, and I blushed as Danielle glanced at me with a grin as she stepped back. “You’re just as beautiful as Kieran said you were.”

              “I didn’t know I was such a hot topic,” she laughed.

              Mom waved a hand despite my blushing. “Oh, he hasn’t stopped talking about you since your first interview together, you should have heard him!”

              “You don’t say?” said Danielle, arching an eyebrow at me with a wicked grin on her face, and I gave a shrug of confession with a sheepish smile.

              “Alright, alright, come on. Let’s get some food, I’m starving.”

              A few minutes later, all five of us sat around a large plate of nigiri and sashimi, sharing a bottle of sake while we broke the news to Mom about, well, everything that had happened over the past week or so, minus some of the more intimate details. I couldn’t bear to tell her before it was resolved, because I wasn’t sure how her heart would react to so much stress and such unusual circumstances.

              “Kieran,” she chided, “I told you not to keep up that weird building-climbing sport, you could have gotten yourself killed! Back in my day, we just called that being a hoodlum, not this ‘par course’ you have these days.”

              “Well, it’s dangerous,” I admitted, “but it got the job done in this case. After I rescued Danielle, me and Carter and Jamal got ourselves out of there as fast as we could. At that point, I just wanted all of us far away from that place. Since there was no real fire, we just left the mob guy, Tony, in his apartment.”

              “I reported the kidnapping on the way back from that place,” Danielle said, “but when the police showed up at his apartment, they didn’t find him. He just up and vanished, and nobody’s heard anything from him since.”

              “Oh gosh,” Mom said, putting her hands to her mouth, “doesn’t it worry you that a goon like him is still out there on the loose?”

              “A little,” Dani admitted, frowning, “but I don’t think he holds anything personal against me. He was just that--some goon working for the mafia, nobody high-ranking enough to have a lot of sway in anything. He’ll do whatever his boss tells him, and if there’s one thing I can tell you for sure, it’s that the mafia won’t have anything to do with the real source of the trouble anymore.”

              “I heard all about that on the news,” said Mom, suddenly nodding with a brightened expression, “that was all your coverage, wasn’t it, Danielle?”

              “They thought it would be appropriate if I did the honors,” said Danielle with a sheepish smile, squeezing my hand under the table, “along with my new promotion. There’s a lot of investigative work in my future, and while I can’t talk about it very much just yet, but let’s just say that I won’t need to be moonlighting anymore.”

              I beamed with pride at Danielle and wrapped my arm around her, kissing her on the forehead, and she squeaked in protest while Mom laughed at us.

              “You two lovebirds. So those Paul and Janet characters are out of the way, then?”

              I nodded resolutely. “Danielle’s exposure of everything that happened launched a full-blown investigation into their corruption, and it turns out, there’s been an FBI agent who’s had her eye on them for a while, just waiting for a lead. Well, this was more than a lead, to say the least.”

              “Paul Franklin had a lot more assets than just the football team,” said Dani after a swig of sake. “He was the heir to a fortune from his father, and ever since, he’s been blowing it all on sports cars, drugs, failed businesses, and cargo ships he loaned out to the mob. The investigation is still underway, but my guess is that those ships were his hook into getting that Tony guy to kidnap me. It’s a miracle Paul was able to keep his illicit house of cards standing for this long, he was so irresponsible. Janet was the best thing to happen to him, if you ask me.”

              Mom’s face was flabbergasted, gaping at everything she was taking in, and I could already feel a lecture about my dangerous lifestyle coming.

              “But the investigation has been going deeper,” Danielle confided in a lower voice. “That FBI agent has kept in touch with me, and right now, they’re following up on a tip that Paul’s father’s death might not have been an accident. So between the two of them, Paul and Janet are going to be locked up for possession, unlawful imprisonment, smuggling, murder in the first degree, and a slew of other fun add-ons.” Danielle smiled triumphantly and took a bite of nigiri.

              “And in case there was any worry about the mob getting Paul a ride out of prison,” I added, thinking of the tip Dante gave me shortly after the whole incident, “I hear his cargo ships have mysteriously burned down in the harbor. The Vegas mobsters are going to have to lay low a while, thanks to Paul, and they’re ‘returning the favor’ in their own way. We won’t be hearing any more from them for a long time.”

              “Rest assured,” Carter chimed in, “the fire chief forgave me when he found out why I’d commandeered a fire truck for a, uh, non-fire related ordeal.”

              Anna grinned and wrapped her arm around his. “That was wholly unprofessional,” she teased, and he smiled back.

              Mom beamed at all of us and said, “Well look at all of you, putting criminals away and launching investigations into sports corruption and mobsters--I’ll be surprised if I don’t have a heart attack before you’re thirty!”

              “I don’t plan on making a habit of it,” I laughed, Carter and I exchanging glances. “I can’t speak for Danielle, but I think I’ll settle for old-fashioned sports as long as I can, personally. The less I have to deal with ambitious maniacs like Paul and Janet, the better off I’ll be.”

              “And I think I’ve hit the ‘fake fire and kidnapping rescue’ quota for my career,” Carter added. Danielle’s face told me she was, on the contrary, more than happy to keep up this line of work, and seeing her happy made me happy.

              “But what about you, Kieran?” Mom asked, folding her hands on the table. “Now that Paul and Janet are in prison, what’s going to happen to the team?”

              “It’s being sold off,” I said with a little sadness, “and it’ll be a shame, but most of us are going out to other teams. Talks are already underway for just about everyone.”

              “He’s understating that about himself,” Danielle said with a proud smile. “His phone hasn’t stopped ringing since the news expo. Kieran’s the most desirable player in the southwestern US right now, and he’s already got a few offers on the table, if I’m not mistaken,” she said with a wink to me, and I nodded.

              “A few
good
ones,” I said. “The hardest part will be turning down the offers I
don’t
take, honestly.”

              “Well I have one request, then,” said Mom with a wry smile. “Anyone you decide you want to work with, they have to be vetted with me first.” We all laughed, and before the night was over, we were toasting to putting the hard times behind us and looking forward to a brighter tomorrow. What I didn’t tell Mom was that the offer I was considering came with a signing bonus I’d be giving to her--a bonus that would support her for the next five years, easily.

              For the first time in a long time, I got to see everyone together, smiling, laughing, and celebrating together, and we had nothing but good times to look forward to.

***

              Back at the house, I carried a laughing, tipsy Danielle over the threshold of my house, and she let her shoes clatter to the ground as we stepped inside and I closed the door behind us. Her arms were around my neck, and she’d been kissing at my jaw the whole way to the door as I grinned down at her.

              Once the door was closed, she unbuttoned her blouse, then stopped herself as she opened her deep green eyes and looked into my sky-blue ones, running a finger through my wavy blonde hair and admiring me, drinking me in.

              “Kieran,” she said, her mouth curling into a smile, “I want you to strip me. I want to feel exposed to you.”

              “We aren’t even going to make it to the bed, are we?” I asked, and she bit her lip, looking at me with heavily lidded eyes as her hand stroked my chest, pulling open my shirt a few buttons to expose my exquisitely toned pectoral muscles.

              “I don’t know if I can,” she admitted.

              Setting her to her feet in the spacious living room, I circled her, taking my turn to devour her with my eyes. I could tell she felt exposed and at my mercy here, as she brought her legs close in together, and with her eyes, she dared me to go further.

              From behind, I unbuttoned the rest of her white blouse while slipping my hand down her gray pencil skirt, pressing my cock into her soft, round ass. I heard her breathe in sharply as my fingers worked their way past her panties and found her warm, wet lips. “You’ve been thinking about me, haven’t you?” I whispered into her ear, my voice a husk.

              “It’s been so hard to keep my hands off you,” she confessed, and as her blouse slipped to the ground, I unhooked her bra and let it fall to the ground, and I took a gentle hold of her arms to turn her around, my eyes just appreciating her whole form. She regarded me carefully for a few moments before a small, loving smile came to her face.

              “Kieran,” she started, “I’ve never...well, I’ve never felt comfortable with my body before, and the thought of someone seeing me like this has always been terrifying. With you, though, I don’t know what it is, but I just,” she paused, chewing her lip as I pulled her skirt and panties down, leaving her utterly naked before me. “I never thought I’d feel so
comfortable
with someone, like I could show you anything, do anything with you, and instead of turning me into a nervous wreck...I just
want
it,” she finished with a grin I could tell she hadn’t expected, and as I returned it, I put my hand on her ass and squeezed it gently, pulling her into me.