Santa’s Pucking Hat Trick (The Forbidden Reverse Harem Collection)

10. Roman

10

ROMAN

“ C hrist, Rome, you’re so late,” Gregory, one of our team’s habitual benchwarmers, marveled as I strolled into Rachel’s little photoshoot well after our call time. The twerp was snickering like a grade school snitch about it, so I smacked the back of his head.

“Fuck off and get laid sometime, Greggie,” I told him with an overly pleasant smile. He rolled his eyes, since he was used to my usual antics by now, and I passed him easily as I made my way toward a food table I’d spotted the second I walked in.

To be fair, I’d been late on purpose. Partly because this shit was happening too early in the morning for me, especially on a day when we didn’t have practice, and partly because I knew it would get Rachel’s goat. I’d done a good job of weaseling out of her little interview idea for the past several days too, and it was cute to see her get all annoyed at me.

Usually, I preferred women who liked me more openly than Rachel. The hard-to-get act wasn’t my style, and I saved the teasing for my friends, or for sex. But this dynamic was interesting, and I’d been starting to get bored before Rachel Henning entered the picture. Just like in bed, I’d try anything at least once.

It wasn’t until I’d loaded down a paper plate with snacks that I finally took notice of what was happening on the Christmas-themed photoshoot set. For the moment, the photographer Rachel had hired was snapping shots of Nakamura and Michael, both dressed in casual Santa Claus outfits—boots suitable for climbing down chimneys, red pants with fuzzy white trim held up by suspenders, matching red hats, and white t-shirts. The whole team was decked out in similar garb as they milled about on the sidelines, waiting for their turn to model. I snorted, noting the dorky enthusiasm Henning displayed as he posed with a giant candy cane prop. He and Nakamura took a picture where Michael was pretending to use the cane as a sword in a knighting ceremony, and I knew instinctively that shot wouldn’t end up on any of the promo stuff. Not unless Rachel wanted to tank our reputation completely.

“Great job, guys,” the photographer told them, his tone sounding a little too deadpan for me to believe him. “Really good stuff. Especially our team captain over here!”

I could feel Michael beaming under the photographer’s praise even before I saw it. Goody-two-shoes Henning always loved to be the teacher’s pet.

“Can we pull in Young for this next shot?”

I watched Young trudge onto the set, grinning to myself as I shoved some low-cost canapes into my mouth. As I chewed and swallowed and housed some more snacks, I finally saw a dark-haired woman approach from my peripheral vision, and I didn’t turn to look at Rachel, hoping for maximum pissed-offness. She couldn’t stand it when I ignored her authority.

“Roman, you were supposed to be here almost an hour ago,” she started coolly, though I could sense her temper flaring at the edges of her voice. Maybe there was a slight tremble. The fraying of her control.

I’d love to make her lose it. Ideally, though, she’d be riding my cock when that really happened.

“Sorry, boss,” I told her with a wry smile, finally turning to look her in the eye. She was about my height in her heels, and I imagined that would make us fit together pretty nicely in bed. “Woke up in some woman’s apartment, and the commute was little further than normal. But I gotta say, she and her yoga instructor roommate were more than worth it. So…bendy.”

It was a completely fabricated story, but that only made it more thrilling to tell it to her. In reality, I’d been alone last night—the last couple of nights, really. It might have been some kind of record for me, and maybe I should have been concerned about this break in pattern, but I figured I was just distracted by this new game with Rachel Henning. If I’d also jacked off in the shower this morning to thoughts of her, that was unrelated. She was just hot. Seemingly unattainable. Off-limits.

And right now, in the face of my made-up sexcapade, she was blushing.

The usual response I’d have to something so pretty would be a sexual one. A desire to see her blush like that when I touched her. A stirring in my loins, so to speak. And sure, that was happening a little bit—I was just a man.

But the overwhelming feeling was an almost giddy thing. Like…I thought she was adorable. I wasn’t sure I’d ever thought of a grown woman as adorable before.

She was still cute to me when she bit out, “I don’t care about your—your extracurricular activities. I care about this photoshoot. Be dressed in five minutes.”

She stormed off, the clack of her heels on the floor only heightening my desire to…hell, I didn’t know at this point. Fuck her? Kiss her? Just hold her until her anger deflated like an old party balloon and then kiss and fuck her?

At the moment, though, the priority was to rile her up even more. And as I shamelessly watched her ass as she walked away from me, the extra sway in her hips that I convinced myself was just for me to appreciate, I got an idea.

Time to amp up this little game to the max. I grinned wickedly as I headed to get dressed—following her orders, but not exactly how she intended.