Finding Us (15 page)

Chapter 14

Christmas day, I was like
a little kid. I couldn’t wait for El to open the gifts I’d gotten her, so at six that morning, I woke her with a kiss, telling her to “C’mon!” so we could open presents.

Now, Ellen Reese Love wa
s not the best morning person, so I had to pull her out of bed, putting her robe on her, then carry her into the living room placing her on the floor in front of the tree before I sorted the presents.

“Jaaaaaaaag,” she whined, falling over on the floor and curling up in
to a ball to go back to sleep, tugging her robe up tightly around her neck.

I snorted and
went to the kitchen to get us both coffee, bringing the mugs back into the living room and placing them on the coffee table. I pulled on her arm, ignoring her pleas to leave her be, and made her sit up. I then sat down behind her putting my legs to either side of her letting her lean back against me then I reached behind me for her mug, bringing it around in front of her.

“Here, baby, drink some. It’ll wake you up,” I said.

She took the coffee then said, “Why do we have to get up so early? It’s Christmas all day, you know.”

“I know,
grumpy,” I said with a chuckle, kissing the side of her head. “But I’m excited to give you your presents.”

After many
more sips of java, she was more awake and we started. I moved from behind her, setting her mug on the table and handing her the first gift to open, excited to see her reaction. And, boy, she did not disappoint.

“
What!” she shrieked after tearing off the wrapping paper then jumped up from where she sat and ran a lap around the living room still screaming, holding her gift in her hand.

I
couldn’t help but laugh at her, suddenly being wide awake as she ran around the room like a lunatic.

“You got m
e the Fendi purse I’ve been wanting forever! Oh, my God!” she yelled out as she jumped from one foot to the other quickly in elation.

She
then plowed into me, knocking me back on the floor, as she kissed my face all over, telling me how much she loved the purse and me, of course, and that I was the best boyfriend ever. When she finally let me up, she told me she didn’t need anything else, but I told her I had more to give her, so that wasn’t an option.

We opened the rest of our gifts. She’d gotten me a kickass Movado Juro watch,
a shirt, a sweater and a framed picture that Logan had taken of us on the beach the year before, surprising me that she’d kept it after all that’d gone down between us.

“God, your tits look good in that bikini,” I said, staring at the picture, which made her laugh, r
oll her eyes and call me a perv as she smacked me in the arm.

I’d
also gotten her a necklace from Tiffany’s, a Nike running suit for cold weather and an iPhone so we could FaceTime each other when I was gone, which, I told her, would definitely amp up the phone sex, which garnered another eye roll from her and another smack on the arm.

We went to both our parents’
houses that afternoon and evening, taking the gifts we’d gotten them, having lunch at her folks’ and dinner at mine.

“Got one more gift for you,” I
said when we got back to her apartment.

“What? You’ve already gotten me way more than enough, Jag. Seriously, it’s all too much.” She frowned.

“Well, this one’s actually more for me, I guess,” I explained, retrieving the box that I’d hidden at the top of the hall closet and giving it to her.

She eyed me
suspiciously, but opened it anyway, finding inside a hunter green corset and panty set. Her face turned bright red when she saw what it was.

“Jag…”

I smirked unapologetically. “You like it?” I asked.

She slid her hand over the satiny lingerie. “I love it. It’s beautiful.” She smiled
up at me. “You said this was more for you?”

I nodded, still smirking.

“Well, then.” She took the corset out, still holding the box, and held it up to me. “It may be a bit snug, but the color will certainly bring out your blue eyes.”

When I lunged for her, she took off
with a shriek running to the bathroom locking herself in.

“El,” I said in warning
on the other side of the door.

“Jag,”
she mocked from her side.

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’d love to get my last gift. Why don’t you put it on and come on out?”

She hesitated a second before saying through the door, “I’m tired. And I think I ate my weight in food.” I heard the shower come on. “I’m gonna take a shower and go to bed. I’ll put this on for you tomorrow, okay?”

I sighed. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Well, shit.
“Okay. Gonna watch a little TV then.”

I went into the kitchen and grabbed a beer out of the fridge, going back in
to the living room to watch some basketball. Damn. Definitely wanted to see her in that tonight.

Almost an hour later, she came out of the bathroom and walked through the living room wearing a sweatshirt and shorts
, her hair still a little damp hanging down her back. And double damn. I actually thought she might’ve just been teasing and had actually put the lingerie on, but I now saw that she hadn’t. I watched as she went into the kitchen, getting a glass out of the cabinet and poured herself some wine from the refrigerator.

“Who’s winning?” she asked as she came back and sat down next to me
, sipping from her glass.

“Uh, Thunder, I think. Haven’t really been paying too much attention.” I stretched, putting my arm around her. “Wine, huh?”

“Yeah, thought I might need a little courage for what I’m gonna do,” she said making me look at her with a frown.

“What
are you gonna do?” I asked.

She grabbed the hoodie by the bottom, pulling it up for me to get a glimpse of hunter green.

“Oh, fuck, yeah,” I mumbled, taking her wine glass and putting it on the coffee table. “Let me see, El.”

She bit her lip nervously. God, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen and there she sat afraid
to show me her fantastic body.

“Please?” I asked as nicely as I could, but still ready to rip her damned hoodie off if I had to.

She stood up and took a deep breath then pulled the hoodie over her head, dropping it on the floor.

“Jesus,” I croaked, looking up at her in awe.
The corset went perfectly with her auburn hair and made her green eyes even brighter, not to mention how magnificently it pushed her breasts up and made her waist look so small.

That gave her more confidence and she shi
mmied out of her shorts and stood in front of me looking like some Greek goddess.

“You’re… you’re perfect, El…”

She bit her lip again and I grabbed her by the waist, pulling her closer, looking at the stunning woman in front of me. Dear God, she had no clue.

“
You’re goddamned exquisite,” I said, suddenly burying my nose between her legs.

“O
h! Jag!” she said with a start.

I pulled back, looking up at her, l
ust all over my face as I brought her down to lie back on the couch. I then leaned down, spreading her legs, pulling her panties aside to see how perfect she was before I put my mouth on her, running my hand up her stomach, feeling the fine satin of the corset under it.

She buried her hands in my hair and cried out, making the same sounds that’d haunted my dreams the month that she’d been gone.
God, I’d never get tired of hearing her like that. Several minutes later, she screamed my name, coming long and hard, and I stood, pulling off my sweater, impatiently unbuttoning my shirt that’d been under it, taking it and my undershirt off, then my jeans, boots and socks.

Standing before her, I reached
down and stroked my cock a few times, watching her eyes get big as she watched me.

“Gonna fuck you now,” I said,
seeing her green eyes grow darker upon hearing that.

I came down on top of her, pulling her panties aside again and slid inside her, thrusting in hard, making her gasp, which made me po
wer in even harder. I pulled the top of the corset down freeing her breasts, taking one in my mouth and sucking hard.

“
Oh, God, yes!” she cried out.

I moved to the other breast doing the same, listening to her moans and cries as I drove in faster
, going deeper. After pumping in several more times, I pulled out and stood, turning her over on her knees, and put one of my feet on the couch, the other on the floor, and entered her from behind, grabbing her wrists roughly, pulling back on them to give myself leverage to continue pumping inside her hard.

“So fucking hot, El. You look beautiful this way, your ass in the air taking me deep inside your tight, wet pussy. Never seen anything so goddamned gorgeous,” I said, my voice gravelly with passion.

“Jag, oh, God, oh, shit, I’m gonna come again!”

“Fuck, babe.”
She was suddenly even tighter around me. “Feels so fucking good,” I groaned, plunging inside harder, faster, deeper.

She screamed out as her climax hit, and I
came right after with a roar, her core milking my length, taking everything I had to give her. Christ.

I collapsed on top of her, dizzy from how hard I’
d come and we lay there for several minutes breathing heavily. Don’t ever let it be said that we didn’t have a great sex life. Good God.

I kissed her shoulder, rising up, pulling her up with me, and sat with her in my lap wrapping my arms around her and resting my head against her neck.

“You’re gonna kill me one of these days,” I said huskily between breaths.

I felt her body shake in laughter. “Oh, I’d never do that. Who’d keep me satisfied then?”

I looked up at her, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “God, I love you.”

She smiled then. “I love you too, Jag. Merry Christmas.”

Chapter 15

We spent New Year’s Eve at
Tyler Callihan’s family’s lake house where they owned a private beach. It was the same place he’d had our high school graduation party, but this time it was too cold to spend too much time outside. The only time we went out was to watch the fireworks shortly after midnight.

El had worn some sexy, slinky halter dress that was silver and sparkled in all kinds of colors. I told her she looked like a disco ball, just not round. That compliment hadn’t gone over too well, but I think she
’d understood what I was saying. She also had on these shoes… oh, damn, those shoes. They were silver and sparkly like her dress, made by some guy named Lou or something, and she squealed when I bought them for her. The sole of them was red, which was hot, but the sexiest part about them, other than the five-inch heel, was the tiny strap that went around her ankle. Those were “fuck me” shoes if I’d ever seen any, and, man, did I want to make good use of them later.

I had on a charcoal gray suit with a light blue shirt and blue, striped tie, and we looked like a damned power couple if I did say so myself.

Ross and Rebecca came too as did several of our classmates and their significant others along with many people from Tyler’s firm
where he was an attorney.

“You look hot tonight,” El whispered
, looking up at me as we stood talking to Nic Barrett and his girlfriend and another couple from Tyler’s firm.

I leaned down and whispered back in her ear,
“Baby, you look hot all the time, especially now.” I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her closer.

Over the course of the evening, several attorneys gave me their card, telling me that if I ever needed their representation, they were there for me. One even specialized in sexual harassment suits, and I had to keep it in check thinking that if the damned mermaid commercials had continued, I might’ve just needed to call on her.

Just before midnight, El and I had been dancing to “Come Pick Me Up” by Ryan Adams, and at the time, I thought the lyrics clearly echoed my feelings of a month ago—that I didn’t give a fuck about anything else, I just wanted El back. Who knew the same song would echo my feelings a couple months from now.

Tyler started the countdown a few minutes before
midnight, passing out glasses of Dom Perignon to everyone, drunkenly shouting, “It’s Dom… inatrix!” every time he handed someone a glass, which made me snort. All night, he’d been hitting on every woman in the room while his date stood stewing in the corner, griping to her friend. In high school, he’d told me that he wasn’t getting married until he was thirty-five, that that’d give him time to “live” before he became tied down. I’d told him he acted like marriage was a death sentence. He’d eyed me and nodded as if my analysis had been spot on. And he hadn’t lied about his decision so far. Guess as long as these chicks were willing to put up with him, he’d keep going through them like they were each a countdown to his doom.

“C’mon, everyone! Thirty seconds to go! Get ready for the New Year! Everyone grab someone to kiss!” Tyler yelled, grabbing the woman nearest him who looked pleased that he’d chosen her while his date stomped out the door with her friend. All I could do was shake my head and chuckle.

I smiled down at El, raising an eyebrow, while she shook her head and giggled. We were both well immune to Tyler’s antics by then, and we knew it’d do no good to talk to him, so we just let it go.

At midnight,
I took her in my arms and said, “Happy New Year, baby,” then kissed the hell out of her. When I pulled back, I said, “Luckiest bastard on the face of the planet, babe.”

She smirked at me in a
Yeah, you so are
way, which made me burst out laughing. She was too cute. But then she pulled me back down to her, giving me the damned kiss of a lifetime then told me she was the lucky one. I had to disagree, but it was a moot point.

This would be our eighth year together
as a couple, and I couldn’t wait to get it started now that we’d put everything behind us. We’d been through a lot over the past year, and I just knew this new year would be one of our best yet.

I flew back to LA the first Saturday
of February. Pitchers and catchers had to report earlier than other players to spring training to give us a little more time to get our shit together for the coming season.

Spending all of January with El had been awesome. I knew I
was going to miss her like crazy when I left. I tried talking her into coming back with me, enrolling in USC again, but she shot that down immediately. This was her last semester, so I understood. She’d told me she was going to be so busy and probably wouldn’t even have time to come visit. Then after graduating, she’d be working at the sports injury clinic in Chicago, a position she’d had lined up for some time, so she knew she wouldn’t have any time to come out.

That did not make me happy.

Looked like we’d have to go quite a while before being able to see each other again, unless I flew in on weekends, which was viable but not too practical.

Back in Glendal
e, Arizona, which was where spring training was held, Baxter, Logan and I were at it bright and early Monday morning.

“So you got to spend a lot of time with your girl then, huh?” Baxter asked as we sat on the field stretching.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

He looked at me as he kept his legs straight in front of him, leaning forward to touch his toes. “Didn’t things go well?”

I curled my left leg in front of me, leaning forward to touch my right toe to stretch my hamstrings as well. “Things went great.”

He got a thoughtful look on his face. “So why’re you in a shit mood?”

I stood up and bent at the waist, hanging my hands over my toes. “Because,” was all the answer I gave him.

Baxter looked at Logan who was doing lunges, stretching his quads. “She’s gotta stay there. He’s gotta stay here,” Logan explained.
“Should’ve just stayed broken up, dude.” I shot him a
Fuck you
look and he shut up, but not without smirking at me first. Fucker.

Baxter nodded in understanding. “Sucks, man.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled, standing and throwing an arm over my chest as I held it at the elbow with my other hand for a stretch then switched.

I talk
ed to El every night from my hotel room so she wouldn’t forget me. She laughed when I told her that.

“I could never forget you, honey. You’re the other half of my soul. That’s why it hurts so much to be apart,” she replied.

I wholeheartedly agreed.

But there was a bonus to all of this. The phone sex was amazing. Yeah, I
know. Call me Dick. But FaceTime added a whole new dimension to it, and as guys are so visual, well, you get the picture. Watching El come was sweet torture, but if it was all I could have, I’d take it.

The month of February went by quickly with
training games starting the last week going almost to the end of March when the regular season began. And I was ready. I felt good, my arm felt good, and it couldn’t get much better than that.

Before things got
really insane, I flew to Chicago to spend a long weekend with El, and it was like I’d never been gone. We picked right back up where we’d left off, and I had a huge smile on my face when I returned to LA the next Wednesday. The other thing improving my mood was, since I’d been back, Alessandra had made herself scarce, only saying hi to me once in the hallway before asking about Logan. To get him back for his shitty remark about staying broken up with El, I gave her his new number. When he’d called five minutes later to cuss me out, it’d made my entire week.

And then the shit hit the fan.

Two weeks later, on a Sunday
evening after our mid-April game, Ross called to warn me that I’d probably be getting a couple phone calls—one from Rebecca and probably one from El.

Since I
never had time to watch TV, nor really had one fuck to give it, I guessed the last mermaid commercial had aired. Ross confirmed my suspicions. Just fucking great.

A
fter Ross and I hung up, I girded myself for the incoming calls from the girls. An hour later, Rebecca called.

“I really hate you right now,” she said when I answered.

“Okay,” I replied. I mean, what do you say to that?

“I can’t believe you let shit get that far, Jag. El’s crying her
eyes out this very moment.”

“Is El with you
?” I asked.

“Yes, but she doesn’t want to talk to you right now.”

“Where are you?”

“At her apartment. She called and I came right over. She was right in the middle of watching your game, they ran the first two commercials
on back to back breaks, which was bad enough, and then lo and behold, here came the last one with you proposing to that bitch then marrying her. Did you not even think to explain to her what was in this last one?”

Well, fuck. I’d screwed up again. I’d told her about the “kinda kiss” with Alessandra but hadn’t even thought of the other part.

“Let me talk to El,” I said.

“
You know, for some dumbass reason, I like the two of you together, and I know if I let you talk to her right now, she’ll break up with you, so it’s probably best if you let her calm down some. God, you piss me off!”

“I know. It’s a strong suit of mine.”

“I’ll say. Well, I’ve got to go deal with, once again, no thanks to you, a brokenhearted El. I’ll do what I can to talk her out of kicking you to the curb, but I can’t control what happens after that. You’re lucky I’m here.”

She hung up and I
huffed out a chuckle as I sat there feeling hopeless. God, I hated being so far away, not able to see El to explain. But then again I guessed I could. We had the next day off then played in Milwaukee Tuesday through Thursday, so I’d just call Coach and let him know I’d meet them there. I called and got a flight that night to Chicago, planning on trying to make things right… once again.

Will a
ll fuck-ups please raise their hand? I raised both for good measure.

I landed at 3:33 a.m. Chicago
time, picked up the SUV I’d booked and headed to El’s. I’d called Ross to make sure she’d stayed at her apartment since I didn’t really want to discuss this in front of her parents if she’d felt the need to go home.

I u
sed my key to go inside, and found her curled up in a ball on the couch asleep.

“Baby,” I said, sitting down next to her, rubbing her back. She turned and looked sleepily at me, her eyes swollen from crying.

“Jag…” She closed her eyes, a hurt look on her face, then she sat up, rubbing her hands over her face.

I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her into me, kissing the side of her head.

“I’m sorry, El.” It was all I could say.

I was getting really good at this apologizing thing. Maybe one day I
’d figure out how to stop messing shit up.

“You didn’t tell me,” she whispered
looking at me.

I b
lew out a breath. “Tell you what, baby?”

T
he hurt that was so plain on her face gutted me.

“You didn’t
tell me there was a proposal… and a wedding…” Her breath hitched as she looked down to where she tangled her fingers in her lap.

“I know. I’m so sorry.
” I sighed. “To be honest, it didn’t mean anything to me, so I didn’t even think to tell you.” I gently took her chin with my thumb and fingers turning her to face me. “I just didn’t think.”

Her breath hitched again and she huffed out a laugh. “
I know you probably think I’m being ridiculous, and I think a little might be that I’m PMS’ing, but seeing you on one knee before her. God…” She turned her head to look down again, shaking it.

“El…
” I pulled her closer to me, resting my chin on top of her head, apologizing again. I really had no clue what else to say or do, so I just kept my mouth shut.

S
he sat back on the couch against my arm still behind her, staring straight ahead, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. Next, she took a deep breath, and after letting it out she said, “I’ve been planning our wedding since I was twelve. I know I want you to propose to me over the Jumbotron at Wrigley Field, which is stupid and cliché, but that’s what I want.” She looked at me sheepishly then looked down at her lap again. “I want six bridesmaids and groomsmen. Bec will be my maid of honor, of course, and Ross or Tyler will be your best man. We’ll invite two-hundred and fifty people. You’ll tear up when I walk down the aisle to you, so happy that we’re finally getting married.”

She chuckled as she looked at me out of the corner of her eye.

“We’ll dance our first dance to ‘When I Fall in Love’ by Nat King Cole and you’ll tear up again because the emotion of it will get to you. God, you’re a bawl baby.” She looked at me and smiled.

I barked out a laugh then kissed the side of her head again.