Double Team: A Menage Romance Read online

  All I know is that in the few minutes out there in the hallway, the girl I saw – the one who stood with her hands on her waist, glaring at me with her nostrils flared – had some fire in her veins. She didn't seem like the kind of girl to hang back and smile demurely while deferring to anyone, which is exactly what she's standing there doing right now.

  I shake off those thoughts, because it's none of my damn business. After the speech, I head right for the door because I'm tired of rich people and I’m pretty sure the longer I stay here, the greater the chance there is of me doing something that's not good for my image. I'm going to sneak out quietly - or at least as quietly as a guy my size can.

  Until she catches me. I know it's Grace’s hand on my arm before I even turn around to look. "Mr. Ashby."

  "Ms. Sullivan." When I face her, I’m looking down into those striking green eyes. Hell, everything about this woman is striking.

  She pauses for a moment, her lips parted just slightly. She's wearing this lipstick, fire engine red, that perfectly matches the color of her dress, and I can't stop staring at it. In that moment, the image of her on her knees, those bright red painted lips wrapped around my cock, flashes into my head. My dick twitches just thinking about it.

  Getting a hard-on in this setting is the last thing I need. I clear my throat and try to push that thought out of my head before she decides I'm some kind of pervert.

  Then Grace leans close to me, her lips turned up at the edges in a playful smile. "I think, since we've been to second base already, you can call me by my first name."

  Well, maybe Little Miss Perfect has a sense of humor after all. "Okay. Grace, then."

  She pulls the corner of her lower lip into her mouth and I think I hear her inhale sharply. She's standing so close to me that I can smell her perfume, light and airy and not at all what I'd imagine someone like her – cool, calm, and professional – would wear. "Noah," she says, her voice soft.

  The second the word leaves her lips, I picture her calling out my name, her head against the pillow, her face upturned toward mine as I drive into her. Noah… Noah.

  Just standing near this girl is killing me.

  "Grace!" a woman's voice interrupts, and whatever moment passed between us is immediately broken as Grace turns to smile politely and answer a few questions. I could easily take the opportunity to leave, and that’s what I should do, except that I find myself not wanting to go.

  Grace breaks off the conversation quickly, gesturing at me to follow her as she weaves through the crowd. She smiles graciously at people, but her security detail does a good job of subtly whisking her out of the room. They open a door manned by a Secret Service agent, and I follow Grace down a hallway and into a private room as one of the women in her security detail clears the room perfunctorily and then walks wordlessly outside.

  I wait until the agent is gone to speak. "If you wanted to get to second base again, all you had to do was say so," I say, regretting my words nearly the second they leave my mouth. Yeah, that’s fucking classy, Noah.

  A look of confusion passes over her face. "I didn't want to – you think I brought you back here so I could… so we could –?"

  "First you put your tits in my hands, and now you're dragging me to a back room." I don’t know why I say it, except for wishful thinking on my part. There’s just something about this girl who got so riled up in the hallway earlier, with her cheeks flushed pink and her green eyes flashing, that brings out some juvenile part of me. I just want to get her riled up again.

  She’s so damn hot when she’s angry.

  She narrows her eyes. "I did not put my tits in your hands," she says. "And I certainly did not drag you back here so I could do… whatever with you."

  She actually looks offended - offended and pissed off. I'm not going to lie, though, pissed off is a damn good look on her.

  "No?"

  She hesitates. "No.”

  “Well, that’s disappointing.”

  She blushes. A faint pink tinge colors her cheeks and I’m unnaturally pleased with myself for causing that blush. I know I shouldn’t be hitting on her – this is a bad idea on so many levels – but somehow I can't seem to help myself.

  "Did you get the… you know? The photos?"

  "They're gone. Erased."

  Her eyebrows go up. "You got them?"

  "The photos aren't going anywhere." I leave out how much I agreed to pay the guy to delete the pictures. I thought about keeping one just to show Aiden – and maybe to print out and frame because he’d never believe what happened otherwise - but I didn’t. I deleted all of them because of the principle of the thing.

  Sometimes having principles is a real drag.

  "Is the photographer…alive?" she asks.

  "No, I killed him and left his body outside in the middle of the street with a sign that says, ‘This is what happens when you take photos of the President’s daughter.’”

  She narrows her eyes. "There's no need for sarcasm. You're… large and a football player. It's not an entirely unreasonable question."

  I choke back a laugh. "Because I'm a football player, you think that I pummeled some reporter into the ground over a few photos?"

  "Isn't that what you do for a job?" she asks. At first, I think she's joking, but she looks at me blankly. It makes me irritated, the way she asks it, like I'm some kind of hired thug.

  "I play football. I don't break people's legs for a living."

  She shrugs, but her cheeks are pink again, embarrassment coloring her face. "I don't really watch the game."

  "Of course you don't."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" she asks, her voice tight, obviously bristling at my statement.

  "Girls like you don't watch football."

  "Girls like me?" She draws herself up straighter, standing closer to me, her hand on her hip.

  "You're not a drink-beer-and-watch-football kind of girl. Let me guess. You have season tickets to the opera?"

  "You don't know anything about me."

  "I know your tits aren't fake."

  Her face colors. "You're a pig."

  I think I must be a pig, because hours after touching this girl, I can still feel her skin under my hands, smooth and soft and silky. Now I want more. In fact, I’ve never wanted to tear a dress off a woman as much as I want to destroy the silky little red number that Grace is wearing right now.

  "Why did you really bring me back here?" I ask, stepping closer to her. I shouldn’t be stepping closer to a girl like this. I should be backing off, walking the hell away from her. I half-expect her to push me away – or hell, call for her security – but she doesn't. She doesn’t move an inch.

  "To ask you about the pictures," she says, her jaw set but her voice falters.

  "To ask me about the pictures," I repeat. "The ones with my hands on your breasts."

  She swallows hard. "That's right."

  I can’t help doing what I do next, even though it’s the last thing I should be doing. I touch my fingertips to her arm, running my fingers over her skin until I reach her shoulder. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away a bit when I touch her. Instead, she makes a little whimpering sound.

  Oh, hell.

  That sound makes me hard as a rock. My cock immediately springs to attention under my tuxedo, and I slide my hand to the nape of her neck, pulling her hair as I turn her face toward mine. I’m very nearly about to crush her lips under mine, when there's a knock on the door.

  Fuck. I think I groan the word aloud.

  "Ma'am, the President and –"

  The Secret Service agent barely finishes what she's saying before a woman pushes her way inside the door. "Grace, your Mom and Dad are –"

  Grace jumps away from me like she's been shocked by electricity, clearing her throat loudly. "Vi, this is Noah Ashby. Noah Ashby, this is Vi Scott."

  "Oh," Vi says, smiling as she looks between us. She makes no attempt to hide it when she checks me out, her arms crossed over her chest as her