Player (A Secret Baby Sports Romance)(10)

I’m letting him take me.

I’m pulling him inside the elevator, letting him shove me up against the wall as the doors shut behind us. I’m sliding my fingers up his muscled arms, feeling his hands trace over the curves of my hips as I wrap a leg around his waist. In the heat of the shower, as my fingers slide across the heat between my legs, I’m imagining him reaching back and punching the emergency brake, keeping us locked away from it all in that elevator car as he strips away my inhibitions and my clothes, swallowing my moans as he takes me hard and fast. His hands all over me, his mouth, those lips, that cock-

The ring of my cellphone, rattling across the marble bathroom countertop, drags me kicking and screaming from the fantasy. And then I’m alone in the shower, not stuck between two floors in a dark hotel elevator with my mystery man from the night before.

Okay, stop it.

I quickly bring my hands away from my body and lean my forehead against the tile wall, feeling the heat flush through my face.

Enough of that.

I quickly shut off the water, shivering in the sudden chill that takes its place. Wrapped in a terrycloth robe, I step back into the suite, pouring a merciful first cup of coffee and slumping down on the sofa to glance at my phone.

My mother, of course.

I toss the phone away, groaning. Yeah, that’s a conversation I can’t wait to have.

There’s a chance she knows even without talking to Vince. God only knows how, but there’s almost a sixth sense to the missed call icon on my phone that tells me she knows what’s happened, and that somehow, this is my fault.

“Men will be men, Natalie. You mustn’t let a silly dalliance get in the way of your own future.”

I roll my eyes at the very probable line I can almost literally hear coming from my mother’s mouth. I might not want to have that conversation now, but it’s a sobering reminder that it has to happen at some point.

‘Some point’ is certainly going to wait until after coffee though, that’s for sure.

I’m grumbling into the steaming mug, curled up on the couch in my robe with plans to spend the next week in here if I have to, when my cellphone rings again.

My mother, again.

I roll my eyes and turn back to my coffee, but it buzzes a third time, and then a fourth.

Goddamnit.

I groan as I answer the call.

“Hello mot-”

“Natalie Elizabeth Ames!”

Yep, there’s that vitriol.

“Ten minutes before his company gala, Natalie?” My mother sounds absolutely aghast. “You don’t just leave like that, Natalie!”

“Are you at all interested in my side of the matter?”

Of course she’s not.

“Oh don’t get dramatic, dear. There are no sides here, merely what’s proper, and what’s not.”

I bite my tongue, pulling the phone away from my ear and taking another necessary sip of my coffee.

It’s not that I don’t want to tell her about walking in on Vince’s flagrant affair, it’s that I know she’ll actually still think I’m in the wrong for leaving him. I’m the “improper” one for not calmly taking a seat outside his office and waiting for him to finish.

She’s still talking when I bring the phone back to my ear.

“Furthermore, I see no reason why you feel a need to drag this family through anymore mud then-”

“Mother,” I interrupt, something I know gets under her skin like nothing else. “How’s Aspen?”

She sighs heavily at my abrupt subject change. “Aspen is fine, dear.”

Aspen, where my mother is currently vacationing with Monty - her third husband - at his new ski chalet. I scrunch up my face, loathing that I’m about to ask this.

But when you’re out of options…

“I was, uh…” I take another breath. “I was thinking about visiting?”

Mother gives a mirthless, brittle laugh. “Oh, dear, no.”

“Wait, seriously?”

“Oh, no, honey, I mean there’s no skiing this time of year.”

I frown. “I don’t ski.”

“Well,” she huffs. “We’re doing a bit of maintenance, you see.”

“Mother, I was just hoping to get away for a little while and-”

“Natalie…” My mother sighs again. “You are a grown woman, you know. You’re old enough to face and solve your own problems.”

Translation: I’m old enough to just go and marry my own stubborn rich asshole of a husband.

Like she did.

Three times.

Of course, there’s the unspoken reason my mother doesn’t want me interrupting a vacation with her newest beau. And that would be that she’s already had enough of Monty trying to peek down my top or up my skirt at their elaborate Tuscan wedding celebrations four months ago.