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  “You really should have let me take you to a hotel last night,” he growled, as he peeled off the light cotton top I wore in bed. The matching pants soon followed. “I couldn’t sleep last night thinking of what we should be doing.”

  “You’d better make up for lost time then,” I replied, and pulled down Jaxon’s boxers to reveal his stiff cock. I wasn’t sure whether that was just his morning glory or if the erection was specifically for me, but I didn’t much care. It served the same purpose either way.

  “I need to taste you again,” Jaxon said, as his tongue headed for my sex.

  “No, just fuck me,” I told him. “I’ve been touching myself all night and all morning just thinking about you. I’m soaking wet, and I need you inside me.”

  Yesterday had been a day of firsts. Not only had it been the first time I’d had sex with Jaxon, it had been the first time I’d ever come under a man’s touch without having to do any of the work myself. Jaxon had me coming hard in his face before he’d even entered me. I’d been embarrassed, and for a few moments had tried to hold back, but it was too late. I exploded while he sucked on my bud, and then again just before he came.

  Jaxon slipped on a condom and darted between my legs. I’d nearly come at least five times during the night, but each time I stopped myself and promised to save it for Jaxon.

  The second he was inside me, all those orgasms came flooding to the fore and I came hard, my pussy clenching tightly around his thick cock. The orgasm flooded my insides and helped his shaft slide in and out as he pounded my pussy.

  I stared into his eyes as he slammed himself inside me. My hands grasped his back and my fingers dug into his muscles. I probably left nail marks on his skin, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t have control of my body when he was inside me.

  A second orgasm followed quickly after the first, but this time I couldn’t even manage the energy to scream. It overcame my entire body, and I shook under Jaxon as he emptied himself inside me.

  It was a good job we hadn’t stayed in a hotel last night. The sex was phenomenal, but I didn’t know if my body could handle Jaxon more than once every twenty-four hours. He had me gushing just by looking at him, and his cock made me come within minutes.

  Jaxon lay down next to me and I turned to face him, my fingers running over his chest making random patterns against the sweaty skin. His chest moved up and down heavily until he slowly resumed breathing regularly. He was much fitter than me so I was still panting when he looked ready to go again.

  “How long until you need to show your face at work again?” Jaxon asked. He played with my fingers and kissed them one by one.

  “I said I’d be out for most of the day. They won’t miss me if I don’t show up at all. The worst that can happen is they fire me, and to be honest I’m not sure I care all that much if they do.”

  “So we have the entire morning to ourselves then? I like the sound of that.”

  “We have the entire day to ourselves,” I said. “Dad won’t be home until six at the earliest and who knows when Carrie will come home.”

  “I have an appointment just after lunch,” Jaxon said. “I’ll have to leave about one o’clock.”

  “Who are you meeting? Daisy?” I still detested that women even though Jaxon insisted that she had her uses. I didn’t doubt her competence as an agent, but she certainly wasn’t a great human being. The fact that she clearly wanted to screw Jaxon didn’t help my mood whenever he was around her.

  “No, not with Daisy,” Jaxon replied. “It’s just another hospital appointment.”

  I sat up in bed and rested against the headboard. “Why didn’t you tell me? I want to go with you.”

  “No,” Jaxon replied firmly. “You shouldn’t be there for this one. I’m going alone this time, so Daisy won’t be with me.”

  “I want to be there for you. Stop being stubborn; you can’t go through this on your own.”

  “I might have to undergo some treatment,” Jaxon said. “It might make me sick and I don’t want you to see me like that.”

  “You mean chemotherapy?” I asked, trying to keep my voice strong. I didn’t want to sound scared in front of Jaxon; he was the one undergoing the treatment, not me.

  “Radiotherapy,” Jaxon said. “It’s not as drastic as chemotherapy, but it might still make me sick.”

  “I don’t care. I’m going with you and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Anyway, you’ve seen me be sick before, so it’s only fair I see you.”

  “I have?”

  “Yes. It was just a few days after you’d moved in to the house when our parents first got together. I wasn’t exactly happy with the situation, so when one of my friends threw a party I took it as an opportunity to get blind drunk. I came home and threw up in the bathroom. You turned the shower on and tried to hide the noise so Dad wouldn’t hear.”

  “Oh yes, I remember.”

  “You also teased me for days afterwards, but Dad never found out so you did me a favor overall.”

  Jaxon smiled and resumed playing with my fingers. He seemed obsessed with them, as if he didn’t have any of his own.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said. “I handled this by myself last time, and I can do it again.”

  “I know you can, but you don’t have to. This time, I’m going to be there with you every step of the way. Talking of support, have you told your dad yet?”

  Jaxon shook his head. I spoke to him yesterday and it turns out he is coming to New York soon anyway, so I decided to tell him then. It’s better he get the news in person instead of over the phone.”

  “Will I get to meet him?” I asked. Jaxon had never brought his dad round to the house before because his dad was no longer on speaking terms with his mom. My mom and dad still spoke to each other occasionally, but Jaxon’s parents hated each other as far as I could tell.

  “Of course,” Jaxon replied. “I’ll make sure you get to meet him. I’m not sure how I’ll introduce you, but we can work that out as it gets closer. Now then, we still have a few hours before we have to leave. What shall we do in that time?”

  I smiled and lay back down on the bed before surrendering again to Jaxon’s lips as they moved down between my legs.

  -*-

  I’d never been one of those people who hated hospitals, but that was probably because I’d never had a traumatic experience in one before. Unless you counted being born, although that was likely more memorable for my mom than me. I’d been to hospital a few times to get stitches after falling over as a kid, but other than that I’d never had cause to visit one. Now I saw why people hated stepping foot inside them.

  As we walked to the Neuro-Oncology Ward for Jaxon’s appointment, I knew we were going to have an unpleasant experience, and that warped the way I thought about the entire building. Everywhere I looked I saw patients who could be here for anything from a simple x-ray to a final dose of chemotherapy that may or may not save their life.

  I was overwhelmed with the need to live for the moment, and considered running out of the hospital and telling Dad that Jaxon and I were a couple. I knew that thought would fade before I even made it back home, and that was probably for the best, but remembering how fragile life could be was something I could do with remembering more often.

  Jaxon and I sat down in a large but mostly empty room and waited for the doctor to arrive. I’d expected to see expensive equipment everywhere, but instead there was just a desk, a bed to lie on, and basic supplies like rubber gloves and stethoscopes.

  The doctor joined us and Jaxon introduced me. The conversation Jaxon had with Doctor Lee sounded terrifying to me, but there was some positive news. Doctor Lee did not see the need for any more brain surgery at this point and instead wanted to kill the tumor with radiotherapy. Apparently this tumor was ‘only’ a grade two tumor and therefore not as life-threatening as the previous one. It was still a tumor, so I wasn’t taking it lightly, but this was an improvement on the worst case scenario I’d been picturin
g in my mind.

  I deliberately hadn’t done any research on radiotherapy before this appointment because I knew what sort of information online research could throw up. I’d get all the horror stories and wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Doctor Lee explained that Jaxon would need to come into the hospital a few times and take a series of tablets over a course of about three months. There could be an adverse reaction to this treatment, but some nausea was far preferable to brain surgery.

  I asked the doctor whether there was anything I could do to help, but other than keeping an eye on Jaxon there didn’t seem to be a lot I could do. He was bound to have bad spells, and the only solution was just to push through them.

  There was one question—the most important of all—that I couldn’t find the courage to ask. What are his chances of making it through this? Jaxon kept insisting that the odds were on his side, but I didn’t know what that meant. Fifty-one percent? Seventy-five percent? ninety percent? For the most part, I’d managed to keep these morbid thoughts out of my mind, so perhaps not knowing the exact odds was for the best. It didn’t make any difference anyway. I had to be there for Jaxon until he had beaten this thing, and I wasn’t prepared to deal with the gruesome alternative.

  We left the hospital in relatively high spirits. Jaxon collected the medication from a pharmacy within the hospital and we were free to leave. Looking at the bottle of pills made everything feel a little more normal. He still had to visit hospital for radiotherapy, but on a day-to-day basis he would be taking pills and that was easier to relate to.

  The second we walked out the hospital we were greeted by a large group of photographers and reporters. They were just milling around and talking to one another as if waiting for something to happen.

  “Has there been a big accident?” I asked, assuming there must have been a major incident for all the press to be gathered around like that.

  “I don’t think so,” Jaxon replied quietly. “I have a bad feeling I know who they’re waiting for.”

  Jaxon stopped and looked around, but there was no way to get around the photographers without them noticing. Suddenly I heard a man yell from in the middle of the pack. “There he is.”

  The man was pointing directly at us. I’d seen evidence of Jaxon’s fame on my brief visit to England, but other than my employer desperately trying to woo him, I hadn’t seen much to suggest that Jaxon was truly a household name in the US. If this pack of reporters was anything to go by, then Jaxon was far more famous than I’d realized.

  “Shit,” Jaxon muttered. “Just follow me and keep walking. Whatever you do, don’t talk to them.”

  Jaxon stormed forward and headed straight into the group of reporters who were now picking up cameras and microphones desperate to get a comment from him. There were no major news networks, but there were lots of sports stations, including ones from England.

  A reporter pushed his way in front of Jaxon and shoved a microphone in front of his face. “Jaxon, do you have any comment on the recent story concerning your health?”

  Jaxon pushed him out of the way and looked around at me to make sure I could follow safely. A few people tried to get comments from me, but because none of them recognized me they mainly focused their efforts on Jaxon.

  “Jaxon,” a young, blonde female reporter said, once again blocking his way. She probably knew he wouldn’t push her out of the way in quite the same aggressive manner he had done with the male reporter. “Is it true you have cancer? How is that going to impact your potential transfer to New York United?”

  How the hell did she think it would impact the transfer? I know sport—soccer in particular—is often seen as life and death, but surely this should put things into context a bit.

  Jaxon tried to squeeze past her, but she was persistent and kept shoving herself—and her annoyingly perfect breasts—in front of Jaxon.

  I tugged gently on Jaxon’s arm, careful to avoid any contact that looked overly intimate, and squeezed past him. The reporter shoved the microphone past my face to get to Jaxon, but I reached out an arm, grabbed her firmly by the shoulder and shoved her to one side. She went flying and ended up giving me a view of her underwear when she crashed to the floor.

  For a few moments, I’d been impressed with my own strength, but when I saw the news later that night I discovered that my shove had barely moved her. She’d tripped over the cable instead and that had been what sent her to the floor. Still, the end result was just as amusing.

  We made it into a taxi and soon escaped the reporters who were unable to get in their vehicles quick enough to follow. That was my first real taste of Jaxon’s fame as far as the media was concerned, and I hadn’t liked it one bit.

  “How did they know about your tumor?” I asked. “You could have just been in the hospital for a physical.”

  “I have a fair idea,” Jaxon growled. He told the driver to take us to a hotel instead of going straight home. “That woman has crossed the line this time and I’m going to give her a piece of my mind.”

  Daisy couldn’t be trusted. She’d acted without my permission plenty of times before, but it had always worked out to my benefit, so I’d backed down and let her off. Usually she just did things like spreading rumors about me potentially moving clubs in an effort to get me a better deal. I’d told her explicitly not to do that, because I didn’t like playing those games, but eventually she’d won me round to her way of thinking. By the time she’d proposed I pretend to be interested in a move to New York United, I’d barely needed any convincing at all.

  Daisy liked to play games—most agents did—but this time she had gone too far. Messing around with the business side was one thing, but to spread confidential information about my health was quite another. No doubt she had her reasons, but they wouldn’t be good enough. Not this time.

  I’d paid for Daisy to spend the summer in a five-star hotel in the city where she had every luxury available to her. Judging by the bills the hotel sent me each morning, she was making full use of the amenities. As long as she did her job well, I looked after her and paid her a generous commission—more than most agents got—but she always wanted more.

  “Why are we stopping here?” Jenny asked, when the taxi pulled up outside the hotel. “We still have the house to ourselves for a bit if we head home now. You know, if you want to continue where we left off this morning?”

  “I’d love to,” I said, handing the taxi driver a wedge of bills, “but I have to sort something out first. I suppose you’re going to insist on coming as well.”

  “Of course,” Jenny replied. “I might as well make the most of it, because any second now I’m expecting to get inundated with emails and phone calls from the club asking about your illness.”

  “Don’t answer them,” I said. “Not yet.”

  “You’re going to have to come clean at some point.”

  “I know, but I’ll do it on my own terms, when I’m ready. Unfortunately, I’m going to need Daisy’s help to do that.”

  I’d insisted on having a key to Daisy’s suite which she was all in favor of because she thought I might actually get desperate enough to call on her for a booty call one evening. We went straight up to her room and found her on the couch juggling two separate conversations; one on her cell phone and one on the hotel phone.

  She didn’t look the least bit surprised to see me, although she did look slightly displeased to see that Jenny was with me. I stared at her in a way that made it clear she had better wrap up those conversations pretty damn quickly, and she took the hint. Both the calls were about me, but I couldn’t tell who she was talking to. Probably the press.

  “I explicitly told you to keep my illness a secret,” I yelled, as soon as she hung up the calls. I didn’t even bother asking if it was her; the only people who knew were Jenny, Daisy, and a small handful of doctors. “I wasn’t ready for everyone to know and you had them fucking ambush me outside the hospital.”

  “I know, I know,” Daisy said, holding her h
ands up in defense. “And I agreed with the whole keeping it a secret thing at first, but you have a fantastic opportunity to boost your profile here.”

  “You did that to boost his profile?” Jenny asked. Jenny hadn’t known Daisy as long as I had, so she could still be surprised at Daisy’s lack of compassion. I’d long since realized she didn’t care about anyone apart from herself.

  “Everyone’s talking about you now,” Daisy said, trying to pretend Jenny wasn’t there. “Americans love a winner. If you get through this, you’re going to be as famous here as any of the American football players. The sponsorship deals will roll in.”

  “There’s no if about it,” Jenny said defiantly. “He is going to get through this. Don’t talk about it like he might not.” I loved Jenny’s positivity, but I worried where the line was between being positive and ignoring reality. If she was just trying to put a positive spin on things then that was okay, but if she hadn’t accepted what might happen to me then that was a problem.

  “All the better then,” Daisy said, finally acknowledging Jenny’s existence. “Look, no harm was done in the end.”

  “The harm is that I now have to go through all this under the public gaze. I wanted to handle this in private for as long as possible. You could have at least given me a heads up so I wouldn’t have looked like such an idiot walking into that crowd of reporters.”

  “The element of surprise was the best bit. I didn’t want it to look orchestrated. Trust me, you look fantastic in the video footage, which, by the way, is running on ESPN at the moment.”

  “You still shouldn’t have done it,” I said. “You can make it up to me right away.”

  “Whatever you need,” Daisy said.

  “Aren’t you going to fire her?” Jenny asked. “She’s completely betrayed your trust and she isn’t even sorry about it. You should get rid of her straight away.”

  “Let the grown ups talk, honey,” Daisy said.

  I desperately wanted to wipe that smug grin from Daisy’s face, but I needed her to do me one last favor first. Jenny would be pissed at me for not taking her side, but I could explain later.