Ballers: His Game (Ballers Series Book 1)(27)

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Anything.”

“Have you been with a lot of women since me?”

“You really want me to answer that?”

I look up at him and he looks amused. I sigh and shrug. “I guess not. But how did other women take it to see me resting on your chest?”

“Darlin’, I wasn’t with many women. The one relationship I tried to have,” he sighs heavily. “This tat started a lot of shit. She was jealous anyway I think, but seeing the tat caused a lot of trouble. She was never right for me in the first place. To be honest the tat broke us up. She gave me an ultimatum to have it covered or removed and give her a more solid commitment or she was leaving. I had her shit packed for her and shipped to her place.”

“Remind me not to give you ultimatums,” I tease.

“Baby, anything you ask for I’ll give you. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Did you love her?”

“Who?”

“The girl you were in the relationship with.”

“Tiffany, no I never loved her. I felt so lost for so long. She was a friend for a while before we dated. It started out as innocent flirting and a few dates. Then she wanted to get more serious so she showed up at a road game after a win and we made things physical. It was about a month after that that she actually saw the tattoo.

“I wasn’t really hiding it. I just knew her and knew it would cause a problem. One night she forced her way into sleeping over and she saw it when I came out the shower. She went nuts at first.

“I hadn’t known that she saw the picture beforehand when looking through some of my things. She said I was still seeing you and that’s why I was so distant. She called me cold, said I had to be to have another woman on my chest while I was in her. I guess she was right. But I warned her in the beginning that she was not getting all of me, because I knew I belonged to someone else. She pushed anyway.”

“You do know I’m not inking your face anywhere on my body,” I snort.

“Oh yeah,” he chuckles and starts tickling me, “how about here…or here…or maybe here.”

“Brad stop,” I gasp for air as I laugh.

Like clockwork the door bursts open and Brielle comes bouncing in the room. I bite back my laughter and curse under my breath. I didn’t realize we were lying here so long. I am still butt naked. Brad only has on his boxers, which he must have put on when I was in the bathroom.

“Daddy,” Brielle squeals. She bounces up on the bed and launches herself at him wrapping her arms around his neck.

He gives me a wink to let me know he will keep her distracted. I edge to the side of the bed where I spot his t-shirt from yesterday. I snatch it up and slip it on quickly. Brad is holding her head away from me and whispering in her ear while he tickles her.

She squeals with laughter. “Daddy, you’re so silly,” she squeals. “Mommy’s not going to make us eat candy for breakfast. She’ll make us pancakes, right Mommy?”

“It’s lunchtime and I think I’m going to leave you two to fin for yourselves. You are both too happy and loud for a quiet Sunday morning,” I tease.

“Please can we have pancakes,” Brad says with a pout as he holds Brielle in his arms with her back to his chest. She cranes her neck to see his pout then gives one of her own.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I say to the almost identical faces.

“Please,” Brad whines.

“Ugh, go home.”

“Home is where the heart is, Darlin’.”

I lean in and place my hand over the tattoo over his heart. “Just so you know I just might be falling too,” I whisper against his lips as I kiss him.





Chapter 12


It’s mid-April in Texas and I am wearing a damn scarf around my neck. True to his word Brad took us shopping yesterday to make up for the bite marks he left on my neck, but that does not make me any less annoyed that I have to wear this stupid thing. Bad enough I felt like I was choking in the light weight turtleneck I had to wear yesterday, now I have this little scarf on looking like a flight attendant.

Brad was happy with his purchase of a fresh t-shirt and jeans to change into. Then it was off to spoil me and Brielle, which he thoroughly did. He bought me at least a week’s worth of these scarves and a few high necked blouses to wear until the marks fade. He also bought me a few dresses I had my eye on, a pair of shoes that were more for his benefit and a charm bracelet, I insisted I didn’t need.

Then there were the short shorts he bought for his eyes only to go with the shoes he had to buy. According to him the shorts are for when we play Dukes of Hazzard. I got a good laugh out of that. We did a lot of laughing yesterday unlike this morning. We did nothing but fight this morning, which should have been an indicator that today, was going to be a crap day.

It started with me catching him using my toothbrush and flipping out. He feels just because his tongue knows every inch of my body intimately that it shouldn’t matter if he borrows my toothbrush. I think that is more of a reason it should.

The next fight started when he decided he wanted to shower with me and then decided a shower wasn’t all he wanted. I was down with the extra until he pulled me under the spray of the water wetting my hair. He didn’t get that I was trying to stop him until it was too late. So instead of getting Brielle dressed I had to dry my hair, which caused our next three arguments.