Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 135831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135831 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
But Max and I are one-and-done. So getting naked with him won’t happen.
Making sure my face isn’t in the shot, I snap a pic from the neck down. Send it to him. Inhale him one more time.
Then I vow to resist him for real.
As the sun streams through my bedroom window early the next morning, the light feels too bright on me. Like it’s highlighting all my flaws as I get ready for work.
I try to ignore the squirmy feeling in my gut as I pick out a red bustier with embroidered cherries on it, put it on, then slip on black slacks next.
Before I grab the black blouse that’s hanging on the door, I look in the mirror in the corner of my room. Each day since I began this routine—I started it after Gunnar ghosted me—I try to like the view more.
“I am pretty and powerful,” I tell my reflection.
But the words ring hollow. It’s not the pretty part of my mantra that’s the problem. It’s the powerful part, since that’s the lie the morning light is exposing. Lately, I’m powerless to these feelings for Max.
I’ve been giving in at night when I shouldn’t. Taking risks when I ought to be cautious. Listening to the lies I tell myself—that it’s no big deal to say yes to these wild feelings.
It is a big deal though.
I’ve worked too hard in my field. But last night I was foolishly risky. Locked doors or not, that was world-class levels of dumb. I can’t be the kind of woman who blows superstar athletes in equipment rooms.
Max’s words to the press might have been a cliché, but they were a safe cliché. I’m the real cliché. I stare angrily back at my reflection, my jaw set hard, my nostrils flaring. “You’re not powerful when you do that stupid shit,” I hiss at the woman in the mirror.
I think of Erin, a woman I admire, and the question she asked last night.
How steady and strong she was in the media room. She wanted one thing—Max on camera. She knew she wouldn’t get salacious answers from him with me there, so she didn’t ask an aggressive question.
And what did I do to show I’m good at my job? I gave a pro athlete a blow job. What the hell would the reporters I work with think of me if they’d seen me on my knees with his dick down my throat?
I jerk my blouse off the hanger, stuff my arms into it, and button it up. I leave in a cloud of loathing.
At the office, I am all business. I repost the clip on The Real Max Lambert.
When that’s done, I do my morning rounds online, checking sports news sites and feeds. As promised, Erin ran with his comments in a wrap-up report on The Sports Network last night. I hit play on my laptop.
“And in a rare appearance off the ice, the Sea Dogs goalie had this to say about tonight’s game,” she says, then leads into the quote from Max. When the video returns to her, she looks to her co-host and says with a wry grin, “It’s not as if he cracked open the playbook. But maybe he didn’t need to.”
“His numbers this season have been speaking for themselves,” her co-host, Rowan, says.
Erin wags a finger at him. “Hey, don’t jinx me, Rowan. I want him to keep talking to The Sports Network,” she says, then cuts to a report on the Supernovas, and how Fletcher Bane has been playing recently.
Irrational irritation ratchets up in me as they talk about what a great season Bane is having on the LA team. Next, they cut to a clip of him in the locker room last night after a win. “We capitalized on the power plays. We’ve been skating well and matching our opponents. And we just played hard all around.” Then he flashes a charming grin worthy of all the toothpaste commercials in the land. “What can I say? You have to jump on the opportunities life affords you.”
I want to reach through the computer and smack him. And smack Lyra for hurting Max. And then smack myself for feeling all of these feelings.
I drop my head on my desk, sighing listlessly. I shouldn’t care about Max’s ex-girlfriend. Or his rival. I shouldn’t care about how they hurt him. Maybe I should even be grateful she cheated on him. If she’d been faithful, I probably wouldn’t have had that screaming set of orgasms the other night.
I groan. What is wrong with me? I can’t actually be glad that he’s single so he could…please me?
Besides, nothing more is going to come of that brief two-night tryst with Max. I lift my face from my desk, smooth out my hair, and return to my job. Reading and watching everything that was said last night. Jamie, one of the podcasters, has stitched the barrage of questions from the press together, then his commentary comes next with, “And now, winning cliché of the month, is Max Lambert for this chestnut.”