“Game Plan”
Chapter 6 (Part 1 of 2)
After his lunch date from hell, Dirk called ahead and added Chelsy as the plus one to his invitation for the evening. While talking to his agent he ordered his reservation switched to a private table thinking that it would be nice to talk in a more intimate setting. At a private table he would at least have her all to himself for the next two hours. Two hours that he fully intended to take every advantage of in order to win the prize in the end.
Damn, he swore silently to himself. Just thinking about that woman gave him a boner so hard that he could pound nails with. It wasn't just her smoking body either that effected him. It was everything about her that seemed to get to him. Chelsy Lawson was not only gorgeous, she was an enigma. An enigma that he was quickly becoming highly addicted too.
She wasn't like any other woman that he'd met before. It didn't matter that she had spurned his efforts time and time again. Strangely enough, it was almost like the more that she resisted him, the more he seemed to want her. Craved her. Needed her.
And he would get her, one way or another. That much he was bound and determined. The only question he had yet to answer was when.
Everything for the evening was set. Dirk had a plan and now it was time to put it into motion. Just like he did before he took the field for a big game, he thought about all his options, decided on the best mode of attack and was now ready to put everything he had into said plan so it would be executed perfectly.
Failure was not an option. Starting today, he planned to show the very stubborn Ms. Lawson that he wasn’t one to give in so easily and by the end of the night if all went according to plan he should have her eating out of the palm of his hand.
Dirk couldn’t help but to smile at himself at that image. There was something about imagining her tongue on his skin that had every muscle his body flexing in anticipation. Heavy arousal zinged through his body.
He briefly closed his eyes and took a deep breath in an effort to calm himself. If this was going to work he needed to get control of himself. Chelsy wasn't like other women. That was the reason he wanted her so badly in the first place.
Feeling a little more in control of himself and his sexual urges he forced his eyes to open. This was going to work out much better than he could have ever dreamed. Not only was he going to finally get the family that he always wanted, he was also getting rid of a certain unwanted nuisance. By the time Chelsy’s firm got done with one haughty Arianna Premar, she would be walking away from him with her head held down in shame and her tail between her legs.
Fifteen minutes later he stood outside with the late day sun boring down on the back of his neck. He had yet to see Chelsy. Tugging restlessly on his tie he wondered where she could be. Canvassing the sidewalk he bit back a growl of irritation. She was late. It was now ten after seven and patience was not his friend while he waited anxiously for his impromptu date to arrive.
Several people that he knew by name had stopped and tried to engage him in conversation. He was polite, acknowledged them but that was about as much as he could muster. There was only one person that he really wanted to talk to right now and if she didn’t show her pretty little ass soon, he was going to go crazy with want for her.
“Mr. Curry?”
Hearing his name called aloud, he suddenly stopped and slowly turned around. He felt his breath harshly expel from his chest and then he smiled. How could he not smile at the beautiful angel walking towards him?
“Ms. Lawson,” he nodded approvingly as she came towards him. “You are late."
"I'm sorry," she apologized sincerely, stopping directly in front of him. "I had a call that went longer than expected. I got here as soon as I could...considering."
With out thinking about the action, he raised his hand to her ear and tucked a wayward stand that stubbornly escaped her carefully coiffed hairdo and tucked it behind her ear and softly sighed.
"It's okay. I can forgive you this time. No harm. No foul. And besides, you do look absolutely gorgeous in that dress. Devastatingly so.” And she did look gorgeous. The dress was a simple black cocktail number with a scoop neck lined in black rosette sequins. It was form fitting down to her waist and then flared out to just above her knees. She managed to look incredibly sexy without looking the least bit slutty in appearance.
Standing scant inches in front of him she crossed her arms over her chest, pushing her chest out. His eyes followed the movement to her full breasts before he force his gaze to return to her eyes. For a brief second she looked taken aback but then she relaxed and smiled too. “Why thank you,” she replied and then made a big show of checking him out in return, looking him over from head to toe. “And you’re not looking so bad yourself.”
“Now you are being modest,” he told her, falling into easy banter. “I always look good.”
Chelsy let him know real quickly what she thought about his smugness with a universal roll of her eyes.
“What?” He asked, looking down and making a show of straightening out his cuff links. “You don’t think so?”
She tried to hide her smile and then shook her head, looking in every direction but at him. “I don’t really recall saying anything at all.”
“No, you didn’t. At least not with your mouth. But you had that look about you.”
She raised her brow. “And may I ask what look is that?”
He was trying to be nonchalant about it but it was hard watching the sensual woman in front of him exude so much confidence and huge side of irresistible sex appeal. “The look that women give when they you think you are full of shit.”
Chelsy snorted and then busted out laughing, dropping her hands down to her shapely hips. “Is that so?” she asked him in good humor.
Dirk gave her a wicked grin and then splayed his arms out wide. “Look at me and tell me that you don’t think that I’m the best looking man you’ve ever saw.”
“More like most conceited man I’ve ever seen,” she told him and slowly shook her head. Stepping back she sucked her bottom lip through her teeth and blatantly let her eyes rove over his body for the second time in five minutes. Dirk swallowed hard. It suddenly felt like the temperature outside kicked up about ten degrees.
“You aren’t unaffected. If you were then you wouldn’t be ogling me like that,” he said pointedly.
She made a sound in the back of her throat that suspiciously sounded like a grunt. “Now hold on. Let's get something straight right now. I don’t want you going off half cocked and misunderstanding me--I am woman enough to admit that you, Mr. Curry, have one helluva body. That much is obvious to anyone who has eyes.”
He stood up straighter and his lips formed a lopsided smirk. Even if she didn’t want to admit it, he knew she had the hot’s for him. How could she not? He was Dirk Curry and every woman alive thought he was hot.
“But,” she stopped his thought process in its tracks, “you’re also a football player that makes millions of dollars from working out and playing ball. You’re supposed to have a body that women drool over. But just because you have that magnificent body that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have any and brains in that over-inflated head of yours.”
Dirk couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Taking a step forward he bent down and carefully encroached into Chelsy’s personal space. “Are you seriously trying to tell me that since I play football for a living that I’m supposed to look good? That the only reason I have this body is because I have to stay in shape if I want to continue to do what I love? And,” he lowered his head so that their lips were barely a centimeter apart and continued with his voice highly controlled, “that because I have this- how did you put it, magnificent body, then I must not have any brains?”
She wasn’t intimidated in the least. She cocked her head to the side and stared him directly into his eyes. Her voice was just as controlled as his. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Woman,” he stared down at her lips before taking a deep breath and looking back up into her eyes. “You don’t know the first thing about me then.”
“I know enough,” she retorted. “I know all about your kind.”
He snorted but didn’t dare to back down. They were standing so close now that their breaths mingled with each word that passed between them. “And pray tell sweetheart, why don’t you enlighten me because apparently I’m so dumb that I must be missing something here. Explain to me what kind is that?”
“Don't play stupid with me. You know exactly what kind I'm talking about. Surely, you are not that dense that I need to spell it out for you.”
Dirk chuckled, the sound husky and deep. It took everything he had in him to not close that last little bit of distance straining between the two of them and just kiss the hell out of those delectable pursed lips.
Now wasn’t the time he reminded himself. He needed to show restraint until the time was right. If he was going to win, he needed to stick to his plan.
Slowly, he raised his head and took a step back from the little temptress.
For a smidgen of a second her expression fell, revealing a hint of disappointment. He took a little satisfaction knowing that she wasn’t completely unaffected by him. “Well then, I guess it will be my duty to prove to you that you sweetheart, are wrong. That behind all this finely tuned muscle and good looks, I actually have a mind and,” he pointed out with a cocky smirk, “believe it or not, I definitely know how to use it.”
She quickly schooled her features and scowled disbelievingly. “An all-pro athlete that knows how to think for himself?” She half snorted and then mumbled just loud enough for him to hear her. “That would be a first.”
He opened his mouth, ready to tell her just how much he could think for himself when a blinding flash of light suddenly interrupted them.
Caught off guard Dirk swung his head around and found a recorder shoved in front of his face.
“Mr. Curry, is it true that you refuse to acknowledge any parental responsibility to your unborn child with Ms. Premar?”
He blinked and then shook his head. “How the hell-“
A second flash went off and Dirk flinched back from the bright light. “Fuck,” he raised his hand up in front of his face out of instinct. “Will you please stop that incessant…”
Another greedy reporter jumped in on the action. “Does your latest dame know about Ms. Premar’s allegations? Did you tell her about how you thoughtlessly got another woman pregnant and are now denying any responsibility to the child?”
Dirk dropped his hand to his side and had to ball it up in a tight fist in order to stop himself from beating the shit out of the irritating reporter. “Have you lost your ever loving mind? How did you-“
“So it’s true?” The first reporter pressed. “Ms. Premar is having your child and you are denying it before it’s even born.”
Okay, that was the last straw. Dirk had more than enough. That thin line he’d been carefully walking snapped. The lies they were accusing him of wasn’t even supposed to be public information yet. No one except his agent and their attorney’s were supposed to know anything about Arianna’s allegations.
“Of course, it’s not true,” he stated a little too loudly while stepping into the reporters face. This had gone on long enough. “What kind of guy do you take me for? If I thought for one second that the child was really mine then you can bet your ass that I wouldn’t hesitate to take full responsibility. But,” he stressed, “It’s not. I know that for a fact. It’s not humanly possible for me to have fathered Ms. Premar’s child because we never had sex to begin with. End of story.”
Dirk turned his back on the reporter, intent on collecting a surprised Chelsy and going inside the banquet hall to escape the hungry reporters. “Come on,” he whispered low in her ear, "let's get the hell out of here."
"That's a lie of convenience," someone said sarcastically from behind him causing Dirk to stop dead in his tracks. "These pictures that I have in my hand say something entirely different."
Caught up in a haze of rage building inside of him Dirk slowly turned around and locked gazes with a hard nosed reported. "What did you say?"
"I said that you're lying," the reporter repeated. He then reached behind him and pulled out a manila envelope and quickly pulled open the flap. Turning it upside down, he shook it slightly as several black and white photos flitted out into this hands. Dramatically, he fanned out the pictures in his hand and held them out so Dirk and everyone else that was standing around them could see the betraying images.
In the next few seconds everything that seemed to happen far too quickly. Dirk heard a small gasp from behind him. He stared down at the same pictures his publicist had showed him two days before. Images of a time the he wanted to so desperately forget.
"I think," the snide reporter said loud enough for everyone surrounding them to hear that this constitutes more than enough proof that the child Ms. Premar is carrying could very well be yours Mr. Curry. The last time I checked," he pointed to the photos where it was clear that Arianna had her body very intimately entwined with his, "this is what it takes to make a baby. Now, do you still want to deny your fatherly responsibility?"
He looked up and the reporter shot him a knowing smirk. That knowing smirk was all it took. Dirk took a step back and before he thought about his next action he mechanically balled his hand up into a tight fist and did the one thing he'd never before done in his life. He let the reporter get to him. Really get to him.
In achingly slow motion, Dirk pulled his readied fist back and let it fly with the force of all the emotions swirling chaotically around him. His fist landed perfectly on it's target, punching the reporter squarely in the nose.
The crowd surrounding them when silent. The shocked expression on the reporter's face would have been comical as he teetered precariously for seconds if he hadn't fallen to the ground like a limp noodle. Dirk had knocked him unconscious.