Endgame playing for keep.., p.6
Endgame (Playing For Keeps Duet Book 3), page 6
“Get your shit, you two ride with me.” Her brows raise but I don’t have time for her shit. I pluck Dawson from her hold and make my way over to my Audi, leaving her to get their shit. We were supposed to be here for another week but little miss I-think-I-have-control over there wouldn’t shut the fuck up about plans for the New Year, so we’re all heading back to CHU a week earlier than planned.
“I go Becky car?” I smile at my boy as I open the back door for Valance so she can strap the seat thing in.
“Yeah, little man, you ride home with me,” I answer. Once she has the seat thing strapped in, I hand him to her as I walk over to Corv, Darius, Saint and Crue. “We good?”
A frown mars Corv’s face as he looks over to Cody’s car and watches her and Nathan slip inside. Honestly, I forgot Nathan was even here. I haven’t seen much of him. “Yeah, Leah will ride with D and Crue, Saint and Katie are with me, so that leaves you, your boy and your girl alone in a car for eight hours.” I narrow my eyes at Corvin and grind my teeth when Saint and Crue begin to cackle like girls.
“Coming from the guy with a face like a smacked ass at the sight of his girl riding with Nathan?” I snark. Corvin glares and flips me off before marching over to his vehicle.
“Ease up on him.” I look to Darius to see him staring after Corvin with a worried look in his eyes.
“What’s up with him?” I ask. D sighs and runs a hand through his before he answers me.
“Remember Lana?” I wrack my brain for a second trying to recall who she is.
“Corv’s bitch ass ex that fucked with his head?” Saint asks. D nods and that’s when I remember who she is. That fucking crazy ass bitch fucked with Corvin’s head bad. She cheated on him and made him believe it was his fault because he was always at practice and she was lonely.
“Yeah, well, Cody may have seen some texts between him and her and called off… whatever the fuck was happening between them.”
“Seriously?” Crue quips. Darius nods but I can see in his brown eyes he doesn’t agree with Corvin’s actions.
“Halfback, get your ass over here so I can cuddle into you.” Darius smiles over at Leah as she rests against his bike. We do our bro shake before we all get in ours–well, except for Darius who has to ride back in this fucking cold ass weather with Leah. Corvin takes the lead, Cody follows after him and I hang back to let Darius and Leah in front of me, leaving me to take up the end of our little train. Valance and I haven’t spoken a single word to each other since Christmas two days ago. Every time I’m around her all I want to do is strangle the shit out of her.
We’re about two hours into our trip of awkward silence when Dawson begins to cry. I flick my gaze up to check him in the rearview mirror as Valance leans around her seat to check on him.
“What’s wrong, munchkin?” Her and I may not have spoken a word to each other but Dawson has filled the silence with singing or talking to his mother and me.
“I… my bibby… there.” I frown and look over at Valance. She curses under her breath then unclips her belt and leans over the console to reach into the back. Her ass is right in line with my face and distracting the fuck out of me so, I slap her perky ass and relish in the squeal that tears from her.
“Here you go.” I fight the smirk from breaking free at her breathy tone. She slips back into her seat and shoots me a glare that I ignore as I look in the mirror to see Dawson clutching a weathered looking blanket. “Every kid has something that soothes them, Dawson’s is his bibby.” I nod even though I have no fucking idea what that means, all the Google searches I did never mentioned anything about a comforter. It takes him mere minutes before his eyes close and he passes out. The sight of him sleeping in the back of my Audi is something I thought I would never see but I’m not mad about it.
Another hour of silence passes and the tension in the car only seems to grow. Valance has been fidgeting and shifting in her seat every few minutes. Silence has never bothered me, I never found the need to fill it with needless chit chat but I know she hates it, she always has. I mentally berate myself for allowing thoughts of the past to crawl to the surface inside me. I may have known who she was years ago but this woman sitting beside me is a foreign being. The girl I knew would never have hid my kid. She may have spun a good story last night but that doesn’t mean I believe her lying ass. I plan to ask our resident hacker—aka Katie–to look into her story and see if it holds any merit as soon as we are back home.
“The girls mentioned that you’re leaving soon?” I white knuckle the steering wheel and make a mental note to speak with said fucking girls.
“What else did your little friends tell you?” I grit out. She drops her gaze to her lap and nibbles on that fucking bottom lip. It always drove me crazy when she did that and clearly that fact still hasn’t changed.
“Just that you leave after the New Year and will be gone for six months.” I look over at her when I hear a hint of fear in her voice. What the fuck is she hiding?
“I would have thought you would have been celebrating that I’d be out of your life again.” A whoosh of air escapes her and her shoulders hunch in defeat.
“Beck, I know you hate me–”
“I don’t hate you.” She swings her gaze to me her mouth slightly ajar. I look at her as I deliver the final blow. “I just can’t stand the fucking sight of you. If he wasn’t so attached to you, I would have thrown your ass to the curb and raised him without you.” Her eyes widen but she says nothing as she turns to peer out her window. Silence ensues for hours, we’re an hour out from CHU when I check the time to see that it’s nearly eleven at night and Dawson has slept the whole way. She wanted to travel as late as we could so he would sleep the whole way and she wasn’t fucking wrong which just pisses me off further that she knows him better than I do.
“I’ll get him to Facetime you every day while you’re away.” I don’t get the chance to answer, her phone rings, cutting her off. She answers it without hesitation. “Hey.” I strain my hearing, I can’t hear what is said on the other line but I can tell it’s a guys voice. “Yeah, we’re not too far now.” She pauses as whoever the fuck it is speaks. “He’s asleep in the back.” That does it, she won’t sit in my fucking car and speak to some cocksucker about my son.
“Hang the fucking phone up!” I feel her stare boring into the side of my head. “Now!” I growl.
“Y-yeah, I have to go but I’ll see you tomorrow,” she rushes to say before ending the call. I cut a glance at her and make sure she can see the disdain in my eyes.
“Who the fuck was that?” Her gaze hardens as she stares over at me.
“Careful, Beck, your jealousy is showing.” The low rumble in her tone tells me I’ve struck a nerve.
“You fucking wish. I don’t give a shit whom you let beat that used up pussy.” She gasps but I’m not done. “I only give a fuck because if that limp dick, motherfucker is around my son, I want to know about it.”
“Screw you! I’ve never done anything to you–” Before she can finish that fucking sentence, I veer off and leave the others to continue on and park on the side of the road. No street lights are visible, so the only lighting is from my headlights.
“Get the fuck out now!” I snap. We both climb out of the car and even though we are both fucking pissed off, we still close our doors quietly so we don’t wake Dawson. I storm around to her side of the car, ready to fucking let her have it but the dirty little liar launches herself at me, I catch her without a second thought and hold her against me. The second I realize what I’ve done I drop her and step back. She stumbles but rights herself quickly.
She smirks up at me and places her hands on her hips with a smug look on her face. “Hm, so you don’t like me and my beat up pussy, but you sure as shit didn’t hesitate for a split second to catch me.”
“Reflexes from playing football,” I grit out through clenched teeth.
“I’ll pretend that I believe you.” My nostrils flare in outrage as I close the space between us. I reach out to grab her and the bitch mocks me by tipping her head and giving me better access to her throat. “Go ahead, choke me, cuss me out, tell me how much you can’t stand the sight of me but this time, make sure when you say it your eyes don’t betray you.” The tremor in her voice alerts me to fact that she isn’t as unaffected by me as she wants me to think.
Game on!
Valance
I expect him to wrap his hand around my throat and spew his threats but he doesn’t. He cups my face between his large hands and lowers his head until his forehead rests against mine. He drops his mask and allows me to see the lust in his eyes, they burn with desire and my breath hitches at the sight.
His gaze bores into mine as his lips ghost over my own sending a shiver down my spine. “You still know how to get under my skin.” He darts his tongue out to moisten his lips and in turn licks my own forcing a gasp from me. He uses that to his advantage as he slants his mouth across mine and kisses me like a starved man. The moment his tongue flicks across mine and the taste of him hits my senses, I moan into his mouth. He shifts his hands, one on the back of my neck and the other on my lower back, as he pulls me flush against him. I wrap my arms around his neck and he thrusts his hips into me. I groan the second I feel how hard he is. I clench my thighs together to try to dull the ache between my legs. He moves his hand from my back to slip in between our bodies and cup my pussy through my leggings.
“Shit,” I rasp out at the feeling of having his hand there. He pushes us back until I’m flush against the side of the car. He shifts his hand and pushes inside my pants. A strangled moan comes from me when he pushes my panties to the side and runs a finger through my slick folds.
“Still so responsive,” he says huskily as he buries his face in the crook of my neck and begins to suck. I lull my head to the side to give him better access, moaning as he sucks my flesh into his mouth. He circles my clit with his finger and I’m powerless to stop the sounds from tearing out of me. “Spread your legs, I need better access to this little cunt,” he commands and like a junkie begging for her next hit, I do as he says knowing that he is the only who can have me seeing stars. He pushes his finger inside me and I gasp loudly. It’s been so long since I’ve had sex. “Fuck, you’re so tight.”
I whimper, “Beck, please.”
He leans his head back and stares down at me as he lazily pushes in and out of me. “What do you need, baby?” My lids flutter shut at the feelings he is invoking inside me. “Eyes on me always, Valance.” I snap them open and hold his gaze as he continues to pump in and out of me.
“I need more,” I cry out into the still nighttime air. He uses his thumb to apply pressure to my clit.
“Fuck.” I feel my pussy walls tightening on his finger. I’m seconds away from coming on his hand when he yanks his hand free, and I balk at him. His eyes darken as a sinister smirk graces his darkly handsome face. He wipes the finger that was just inside me across my face and forces a shudder to roll through his body.
“Still so fucking easy, Val. Now I know for sure you didn’t struggle the past four years.” My jaw unhinges as I stare up at him with wide eyes. “I mean, look how easy you gave that pussy up. Bet you sucked dick for a tenner, didn’t ya, baby?” Before my brain can register what I’m doing, I lash out and kick him right in the dick. Satisfaction like I’ve never felt before courses through me when he drops to his knees like a sack of shit, cupping his cock as he roars in pain. I wrench the car door open, grab his phone from the console and drop it on the ground in front of him as he spews out threats.
“Fuck you, Beckett! The only cock that has ever been in my mouth is yours, you fucking asshole!” I shout before I race around to the driver’s side. I jam the lock in place and quickly adjust the seat before I pull a U-turn and drive the fuck away. I glance back in the rearview mirror once to see him standing in the middle of the road looking like something out of a horror movie. “What the fuck did you do, Valance?” I whisper to myself.
The whole ride back to my flat, I spend berating myself for kicking him in the dick and stealing his car. I mean, I wasn’t a total bitch, I did make sure he had his phone so he could call his friends or an Uber. The moment I pull up outside my run-down apartment, it’s close to one in the morning and guilt is gnawing at me for leaving him back there. I know he deserves a dose of humility but he wasn’t wrong. I let him into my pants as easily as a hooker lets a guy fuck her face.
Carrying Dawson up to our apartment I freeze at the sight of four flowers and an envelope sitting there. I look around to see the hall is empty but the feeling of being watched doesn’t leave me until I step inside my apartment. I place Dawson in his bed before I head back downstairs to grab our bags and make sure that I lock Beckett’s car so no one steals it. A car like his in this area is like a beacon.
I snatch the flowers and envelope off the ground as I push the door open and make sure to lock all three locks behind me. I drop the bags in the living room next to the couch–which also doubles as my bed—then head to the tiny kitchen to drop the freaking flowers in the trash. I debate just throwing the envelope out but curiosity gets the better of me and I tear it open, I frown when I pull out a bunch of Polaroid photos, I flip them over and fight back the scream that wants to tear out of me as I drop them to the ground. I cover my mouth with my hand as I stand here with unfiltered fear flowing through me, tears pricking the backs of my eyes. I scream when a loud knock sounds at my door and jump back a few steps. I clamp my mouth closed and stare at the door like it’s going burst open any second.
My phone begins to ring in my pocket and I squeal in fright. Another loud bang sounds at the door as I fish my phone out. Tears blur my vision so I don’t even see who is calling before I answer and bring it to my ear and don’t even get a chance to speak before his shouts come through the speaker.
“I am going to fucking end you, if you fucking–”
“Beckett,” I whisper shout as another loud knock sounds out forcing me to back up further away from the door. I can hear the fear in my own voice, he must hear it as well because when he speaks next the anger in his tone is gone.
“What’s wrong?” I muffle my sob behind my hand.
“T-that’s not you at my door, is it?”
“Where the fuck are you?” he shouts.
“Valance…” I scream into my hand at the sound of my name being called out from the other side of the door. I’m shaking so badly from the fear that I nearly drop the phone. “Baby.” I cry into the phone when whoever it is speaks again.
“Answer me!” Beckett’s worried shout snaps me out of my stupor.
“Beck, please someone is here and… and I’m scared.” When they bang on the door again, I scream. A second later I hear Dawson crying in the room and my fear reaches new heights.
“I’m coming,” he growls. “Head to her apartment Corvin, now!” I don’t know how he knows where I live but right now I don’t give a fuck.
“Momma!” Dawson cries out, and the banging on the door intensifies at the sound of my son’s cry. Call it a mothers instinct or whatever but at the sound of fear in my child’s voice everything inside me turns numb. I no longer feel fear for myself or worry about what will happen to me if they manage to get in, my only concern is my son’s safety.
“Beckett, whatever happens, you protect our son–”
“Shut the fuck up, Valance!” he roars.
I ignore him as I push on. “You fucking protect him, Beckett, never let him grow up like we did, promise me!” I scream into the phone as I race down the small hallway and close the door ignoring my son’s screams. I won’t lock myself in there with him in case whoever it is manages to get that door open. I want their focus on me and not my son. “Promise me!” I shout into the phone when he doesn’t answer.
“I promise to kill whoever is at your fucking door, I promise to protect our son and I promise to protect you.” His words have my knees giving out. I drop to the floor and sob while Dawson pounds on the door behind me, screaming my name, but I block it out. I shut everything out even the sound of Beckett’s voice as I fall into a pit of despair. “Valance!” The sound of his booming voice through the phone snaps me out of melancholy.
“Y-yeah,” I stutter.
“Open the door.”
I frown. “What?”
“Open the fucking door or I’m breaking it down!” I climb to my feet and quickly and open Dawson’s door. He leaps into my arms sniffing and clinging to me as he sobs. I stop a couple feet away from the door.
“You’re really here? At my door?”
I hear him sigh through the phone. “I’m here, now open the door.” I end the call and drop my phone to the floor as I make quick work of undoing the three locks and throwing the door open in time for Beckett to rush forward and grip my face in his hands. His eyes are wild and filled with unbridled rage as he scans my tear-stained face. He looks Dawson over next as Darius and Corvin walk inside my apartment and stand on either side of Beck.
“What happened, Val?” Corvin asks. I nibble on my lip unsure where I even begin but the moment Darius flicks his gaze to the side and I see his eyes narrow in the direction of the tiny kitchen I know he spotted the photos. He bends down and scoops them all up. I bite down on my lip and take a step back. Beck looks from me then to Darius.
Darius turns to me and pins me with a murderous look. “Why the fuck do you have these pictures?” I shake my head, it isn’t what he thinks but those pictures paint me in a bad light. Beck and Corvin snatch the photos and both their faces turn pale. “Why the fuck do you have those photos of my girlfriend?” Darius shouts and I flinch.
“I didn’t take them,” I whisper as I slowly rock side to side trying to soothe Dawson. Beck flicks his eyes to me, gone is the worry I saw moments ago and now a look of untrust is in its place.
“If you didn’t take them, then who did?” His voice is devoid of all emotion.
