Lover to Lover.

He was 23, a multimillionaire, an olympian, and an icon in the city of Chicago. He was Patrick fucking Kane for Christ's sake. How the hell was she not interested?

There she sat, the same barstool each night, the same seductive, confident, gorgeous smile on her lips. He wanted to kiss that smirk right off her face.

Bridgette Beaumont--fuck, even her name felt like heaven as it rolled deliciously off his tongue. She was the pretty brunette on whom he had his eye ever since spotting her a few weeks earlier in the same Chicago bar they currently occupied.

From the moment that he saw her and bought her a cadillac margarita, he knew he had to take her home and get her into his bed. Unfortunately, he had no luck the first night. Or the second. Or the third.

They ran into each other about once a week at that same bar, but every time, she proved that she had a smooth, fox-like way of slipping right through his lusting fingertips.

Bridgette wasn't the type of girl he usually went for. She was native to the Windy City and a senior studying communications at the University of Chicago. She was intelligent, on the reserved side, and not easy enough for him to seduce with the wink of an eye.

"You gotta give it up man," Jon said as he came up from behind him, clapping a hand on Patrick's slightly smaller shoulder. "She's too good for you."

Patrick rolled his eyes. The team's captain was always saying that sort of shit--like he actually had a better shot at picking up that chick than Patrick did.

"Nah, man," Patrick shook his head and took a hefty swig out of his beer bottle. "Tonight will be different. She'll come home with me."

Patrick could hear Jon's deep chuckle as he shoved his way across the club. When he finally reached his destination, he felt his pulse quicken. Her deep red dress was shimmery under the bar's yellow lighting. He hadn't noticed its sheen from the other side of the room. Now though, he couldn't keep his eyes from wandering over her figure. The smooth contour of her crossed legs made his mouth water.

"You look great, Bridgette."

It always struck him how similar their eyes were. They both shared the same clear, blue hue, but hers were less droopy and more round. Against her raven-black hair and bronzed skin, they stood out more than his did, too.

"Thanks, Patrick." She smiled and his stomach jumped.

She remembered his name. Of course she remembers your name, you dumbass. He thought to himself, You come onto her every night that you see her in here, how could she forget?

He put on one of his typical, cocky grins that always worked flawlessly on other girls. "Let me buy you a drink."

"I feel like I'm sucking you dry here. You've bought me so many drinks." Her airy laugh sounded like a song. "You don't have to--really."

"I want to." Patrick shrugged and pulled out a crisp, fifty dollar bill. Okay, so maybe he was showing off for her a little. Flashing a subtle snapshot of his outrageous salary always had the girls hanging off his arms. This time he wanted it to be Bridgette who followed him around like a rock-and-roll groupie.

She didn't seem to notice though. Her perfect, pink, little pout closed around the tiny black straw of her fruity drink. Eyeing her like a hawk, Patrick could imagine those plump lips around his length and he felt a hot shiver run to his groin.

"Did you catch the game last night?"

She nodded. "Nice goal you had there--Philly never saw it coming." Her eyes sparkled enthusiastically.

He liked that about her. It was refreshing how well she knew her hockey--she didn't watch it simply to drool over the famous, recognizable players. As made obvious by his current dilemma, she wasn't easily wooed by the typical hockey player's muscle mass and confident stride.

"So, B," He started smoothly, exercising the nickname that he had given to her some time ago. "What brings you out tonight?"

She flipped her hair from one shoulder to the other. Patrick's eyes caught each strand mid-flight. That dark-as-night color would look beautiful against the milky white sheets of his king-sized bed.

"I just needed to get out of my apartment for a while." She responded, "All that studying had me feeling pretty cooped up."

He knew that feeling. Not the studying part, but the feeling of being trapped inside a space too small to move. The confining boundaries of the pressure to live up to other people's expectations drove him absolutely insane. Maybe that was why he chose to live the "wild child" lifestyle he did. To get away from it all.

"You sure it wasn't to go home with some unfortunate, naive guy who had no idea what he was getting himself into?" And there he was again--the frat-boy, overly confident Patrick.

"Unfortunate?" Bridgette snorted lightheartedly. "Please, any guy would be lucky to take me home."

That was another thing he liked about her. She was fiery and sure of herself in a feminine and endearing way. He liked to think that their personalities were suitable counterbalances to each other.

"Lucky, huh?" He smirked at her over the rim of his glass. "I'm feeling pretty lucky tonight."

She let out another musical laugh--it was slowly becoming his favorite song.

"You're not the humblest guy around, are you?" Her lips looked like perfectly ripened slices of papaya as they curled into a sly smirk. He was never much a fan of exotic fruits, but all he wanted to do was take a bite out of her.

Patrick took a small drink from the beverage that had been slowly dwindling down all night, his eyes never leaving the petite, ebony-haired, coffee-skinned girl sitting next to him.

"I can be." He shrugged and grinned as she rolled her eyes.

"Oh, I'm sure." Her voice was sarcastic, but her smile was playful.

"You're not giving me enough credit here, Bridge," He chuckled before setting his drink down on the bar's wooden surface. "I'm pretty good at giving and receiving."

His eyes darted over her tongue as it ran across her bottom lip for a split second. His smirk deepened when he saw her eyeing him cautiously. She had caught his suggestive tone and the ulterior meaning behind his words.

It looked for a second like his tactics might finally be working, with the way her light blue irises became clouded and her eyelids drooped seductively.

"Is that the feedback you get from all your girls?" The sharp, witty Bridgette was back and had barely missed a beat.

"What can I say?" His subtle lisp caused him to stutter just a little. "I've gotten some pretty good reviews."

Bridgette giggled, nearly choking on her drink. "And where can I read these rave reviews? The Tribune, the Sun-Times?"

He liked the way her nose crinkled up when she laughed. It reminded him of the way his two younger sisters would giggle uncontrollably at his dumb jokes when they were children.

He caught a whiff of her vanilla-scented perfume when he leaned forward to mumble into her ear. "If you come back to my place tonight, I'm sure tomorrow morning's paper will have a great one."

Their heads were so close he could feel her cheek press lightly against the side of his face as she grinned.

"I'm not much of a writer."

He wanted to stay so near to her for a while longer--just to breathe in the intoxicating air that seemed to float around her like an invisible haze. One of his large paws rested bodly just above her knee. Her tanned skin felt amazingly smooth beneath his touch. It was warm and alive and made him want to explore the rest that wasn't left exposed by her dress.

His voice dropped slightly, "But you're very beautiful."

Her voice quieted to match his. "I know you're no good for me, Pat."

"I wouldn't be so sure." His gaze flickered to her pearly teeth that sunk contemplatively into her bottom lip. "You never really know until you give it a try."

She was smiling softly and looked up at him from under her eyelashes. "You know, I've been coming to this bar for a good two months now, and everytime we've crossed paths you've tried your hand at hitting on me. Are you always this persistent?"

Patrick shrugged innocently, but kept that smirk etched on his lips. "I usually get what I want."

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

But that night--like all the others that involved Bridgette--he found himself walking the route back to his loft alone.

It was the times like these, when he would wander Chicago's streets at the wee hours of the morning, that made him feel like he had been awake for days and days.

Jon's voice rang in his ears like an annoying wasp that just wouldn't go away. She's too good for you.

Was he really not good enough for anyone in this entire goddamn city? The media gave him nonstop shit about his partying ways, the owners of the Blackhawk franchise were constantly up his ass about his drinking habits, and now he couldn't pick up the one chick he so desperately wanted.

What did she know about him anyway? Sure, she heard the rumors that those childish magazines and gossip sites spread, but was that all he was to her? Were the headlines and newsprint all he was to everybody?

Fuck this. Fuck them. He thought to himself. I'm Patrick fucking Kane. Who was the one who scored the overtime winner to bring the Stanley Cup to these people anyway? I don't need to take their bullshit.

A satisfied sneer curled his upper lip as his fingers flew across the keypad of his Blackberry. He swiftly turned on his heel to walk in the opposite direction.

I'm coming over. Be there in 10.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><>

"Stacy?" He called into a familiar, dimly lit apartment that wasn't his own. A few lights were on. Of course she'd be up waiting. The poor girl was infatuated with him and he took advantage of it whenever he needed to get his fix.

A tall, curvaceous, redhead rounded the corner and wrapped her arms around his neck before pressing her lips to his. When she pulled away, a genuine smile lit up her face. She really believed that he had come on his own accord--that he cared for her in the slightest.

A twinge of guilt panged in his lower gut but it was as short lived as any of the other one night stands that were programmed into his speed-dial.

His voice was husky and lust-driven. "Ready for me, baby?"

When he lay down with her though, dark, black, hair flashed across his eyelids; only to be replaced by Stacy's red locks a single blink later. He had let himself get too attached to Bridgette--a chance he didn't usually take. He knew that by letting his emotions get the best of him, he would only be setting himself up for a massive, inevitable fall.

She would never want him and all that he stood for.

So he went lover to lover in order to pull himself away from that dangerous ledge and its plummet. He had played this game many times before: convincing himself that these escapades were enough to fill the void he so often felt.

Yes, he told himself. This is enough. It was a sick game of keeping secrets from himself, his heart, and his soul.

Again and again, when he would wake the next morning in his own room across town, he would be alone. He didn't need anyone though. No; he would go from bed to bed, lie to lie, and continue to ignore the feeling that this lifestyle was empty and insubstantial. The ancient facade that he had built up to mask any stitch of insecurity was too strong to crumble now.

He was 23, a multimillionaire, an olympian, an icon, a playboy, a womanizer, a liar, a flake. He was Patrick fucking Kane.

And that was alright with him.