“The part where we really, really love each other forever?”
“Well, of course! But I was also thinking about the sex part.”
“Yeah, the sex is going to be great.” I hopped out of the car and pick her up out of the passenger seat. “You’re not going to get kidnapped or anything, are you?”
“No!” She wrapped her arms around my neck and started to kiss my face, forehead on down. “And you better not get into a sword fight or shoot lasers, or do anything else that would hurt you!”
“How do you feel about facing down defensive tackles? Excuse me, Em.” She moved aside very grudgingly and followed us into the bedroom. “No, not right now.” I tried to steer her out of the door with my knee. “You go to the…Jesus, Kylie, her tummy.”
“I’ll get her to her bed if you can crack some windows!” Kylie was back in less than a minute, pulling off her clothes and kicking off her boots. “I have a lot of layers on.”
“I’ll help.” In a lot less than another minute, we were naked and in the bed, on the fresh, new mattresses.
“I knew something was up,” she murmured, her hands sketching over my chest.
“Yes, definitely.” I directed her fingers lower.
“No, not that! Oh, but it is,” she agreed, and started a gentle massage that made my eyes roll back. “No, I meant that I knew something was up because you called me ‘sweetheart.’ Like you meant it.”
“I did, I…oh, Jesus, I…” I flipped her over so I could do what I’d suggested before, putting my mouth over her hard nipples, kissing and licking and sucking so that she arched her back, offering me more. I took it, using my hands to massage her breasts in the same way she’d been touching me. I put myself between her legs so I could feel her heat and she moaned.
“Oh, that’s a good one, Kayden. Really good.” She lifted her hips. “Remember when you grabbed my butt?”
“That was last night. I remember.” I did that again and she moaned louder, and grabbed mine right back. I wanted to feel her everywhere and I wanted to touch her everywhere, to kiss her everywhere, to love her everywhere. I started at her eyebrows and moved my mouth down her body, taking extra time on her breasts, which made her squirm and shake, and then down to kiss her between her thighs.
“Tell me, Kylie. Tell me if it’s good.” I licked, my tongue delving and tickling, searching for her clit.
“That’s so good…so good,” she gasped. “Oh, lordy! That’s it, right there. Oh, Kayden, oh!” Her words ended on another gasp. I’d slid two fingers inside her, looking for other places to make her feel even better, and I sucked and licked as I did. I’d never been into this, never, but if she wanted it, I could go all—
Her thighs clamped around my head and I felt her body clench, and I heard her scream my name, too. Pride filled me, pride and an overwhelming urge to be inside her, to hold her in my arms and see her brown eyes and her smile.
She was shaking as I kissed my way back up her body. “That was better, better than anything,” she slurred at me. I let some of my weight rest on her and she grabbed my ass again. “We should do it now.”
“That’s a great idea.” Somewhere, somewhere I had condoms…I knocked the lamp next to the bed off onto the floor and then when the drawer fell out of the table, I found them.
“I’m so glad you have long arms,” she told me. “Can you touch me more?”
Could I stop myself? First I battled with the condom, feeling like it had been years, decades since I’d done this, and not remembering another time, not ever, when it had felt so good. So natural. I cupped her and kissed her neck and let my fingers brush back over her clit. When her hips jerked, I rubbed her there, until she was shaking again and calling my name and I angled myself inside her.
“That’s right,” Kylie told me. “That’s just right.” I put my forehead against hers and pumped in and out, in and out slowly, until her grip on my butt tightened and urged me faster. I lost it then, and was wildly moving, with her yelling and bouncing beneath me and telling me more, and yes, and oh, she was going to come again.
“It’s so good. It’s so good!” She tilted her head back and I bit her neck and felt her come, and I lost it, all control, all rhythm, all knowledge of my surroundings. I opened my eyes and found myself still moving, still jerking against her, panting like I’d been running dashes, and she looked like she was unconscious.
“Sweetheart? Kylie? Kylie!”
Her eyes opened. “Oh, wow. Kayden! I was really right about the sex part.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “How did it feel?”
“Like…like, you know when you eat a bite of chocolate ice cream and your mouth wakes up and hums?”
“I’m like chocolate ice cream?”
“Like that feeling, but through my whole body. Even my eyelashes,” she told me.
I put my head on the pillow next to hers. “When did Emma join us?”
We both looked across the bed, where our dog frowned at us. “I think before I came the second time. I wasn’t really noticing my surroundings,” she answered. “I might have been in a snowbank or something, that’s how out of it I was.”
“You might feel like you’re in a snowbank,” I agreed. “It’s pretty cold in here.” I got up to toss the condom and shut the windows, and Kylie’s eyes followed me the whole way.
“Your butt is something else.” She flexed her fingers, gripping the air, and I felt myself stir.
“Thank you. Yours, as well.”
“Is it going to be like this all the time?” she asked when I got back into bed and gathered her up against me. Her face found the crook of my neck and I felt her soft breath against my skin.
“The sex? Jesus, I hope so. I never felt anything like it.”
“I mean, everything. Do you really think it’s always going to be like this?”
“If you’re asking if I’m always going to love you the way I do right now, no,” I answered. “I’ll probably love you more. I’m crazier about you more than I was an hour ago, so what will happen in a year? Or ten, or a hundred? I can’t imagine how much I’ll love you.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” she agreed, and she shivered.
“Cold?”
“No. I was also thinking about doing it again,” she told me, and pulled my mouth down to hers.
Maybe some things hadn’t worked out for me, and maybe I’d screwed up. Yeah, I’d definitely done that. But Kylie? That was going to be good. She was the best thing that ever happened in my life, and I was going to spend my time making everything the best for her, too. No matter what, or where, or sick, or healthy, or covered in dog hair and…Jesus. “Emma, please.”
“Open the window back up, and then can you find another condom?” Kylie asked. She smiled at me.
That was the definition of success.
Epilogue
Kylie
“You can do it. I’m going to let go.”
“No!” I clutched at Kayden’s arms. “No, don’t let go yet. I’m not ready.”
“You can drive a car. You can run the tavern. You can even throw a football now.” He kissed me. “I know that you can ride a bike, too.”
“Come on, Kylie!” Jamison yelled from the end of the block. Over the past eighteen months, he’d grown about two feet. His height and his red hair made him a great target to aim for.
“Ready?” Kayden asked. He started walking and the two wheels turned.
“Don’t let go,” I reminded him. His hand squeezed over mine, gently pressing the engagement ring into my fingers. I liked to feel that it was there, and I liked to feel that Kayden was there, too.
“I’m right here,” he said, as if he was reading my mind. Sometimes it felt like he did. For example, how else would he have known that I loved blue houses, and that we should definitely paint our own house blue? He’d brought home ten different paint chips and they’d all been shades of that color. How else would he have bought just exactly the perfect warm, soft coat for me last
winter? He’d gotten the size right, too, but he’d said that it was because he had such detailed knowledge of my body.
That was true. The sex hadn’t stopped, and I never wanted it to. I turned my head and put my teeth over Kayden’s earlobe, remembering a few things he’d done the night before. And a few more this morning.
“Watch it,” he said, but he smiled. “I have to keep my mind on the road. I want you to learn this so we can ride together.”
“We have the whole day,” I reminded him, because it was Sunday. I wouldn’t be going into the bar, although with the manager I’d hired, I didn’t always need to be there on the other days of the week, either. Hiring her was one of the changes I’d made since Roy had left the business to me, along with buying cleaning products and providing toilet paper, soap, and hand towels in both bathrooms. But Roy’s Tavern was still Roy’s Tavern, even if he wasn’t with us anymore. I closed my eyes for a moment while I thought about him, and turned my head into Kayden’s shoulder, my bike helmet pressing against his neck.
“Are you scared?” He immediately slowed.
“No. I know you won’t let me fall.” I kissed him and his smile returned.
“I was going to tell you later, but I don’t have all day for bike lessons. I have to go take a meeting.”
“Take a meeting?” I laughed, because it sounded so odd. We weren’t usually meeting-taking people. “Who are you meeting with? A mafia don?” We’d been reading some crime romances lately.
“With the Woodsmen coaching staff. Jim Roberts, the head coach. The QB coach, Murray, some other guys.”
“Other guys, like the Woodsmen offensive coordinator?”
“Yeah, Ben will be there.” Kayden and his brother had slowly, slowly been making inroads back to a relationship. It helped that his wife Gaby and I were already friends, and she was ok with Kayden. And it helped how much he loved his niece and nephew, which was a lot.
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute! Why are you meeting with Ben and the other Woodsmen coaches?” I forgot about trying to ride the bike as I turned completely on the seat to look at him.
Luckily, he was holding the handlebars. “They want to discuss an opening in the offense next year. It didn’t work out great with the trade last season from the Sierras.”
“An opening at quarterback?” I asked, so excited that I stood up on the pedals.
“An opening at quarterback,” His smile put the sun to shame. “It sounds pretty promising.”
I threw my arms around his neck and the bike clattered away as he picked me up. “Kayden, I’m so proud. I’m so proud of you!” He’d put in two hard seasons with the Junior Woodsmen and a stint playing summer league in Europe last year, when I’d missed him so much I’d been about to burst. But it was worth it. “It was all worth it!”
He kissed me, and we heard Jamison yell, “Again?” Emma woofed, and her new sister, Eva, copied her. We’d made the mistake of going to a pet adoption fair, and we’d walked out with a little brown and white puppy who Emma had immediately taken under her wing. Or, paw.
“I don’t know if it’s going to work out,” Kayden cautioned me, but I shook my head. That didn’t matter.
“It doesn’t matter what happens with the Woodsmen. You matter, and we do together, and the dogs, and Jamison, and Ben and Gaby, and the kids, and—”
“Football is at the bottom of the list. But I’d like to make the team. I’d like to work with my brother and Rami.” When he’d retired, Rami had joined Ben on the Woodsmen offensive coaching staff. “I’d like to be a real pro again.” His face briefly looked wishingful. “But you’re right. It doesn’t matter as much as it used to. There are a lot of other things that are a lot more important.” He set me down and kissed me again. “Like planning our wedding, for example. Like learning to ride a bike.” We got it up and I settled back on the seat. “Ready, sweetheart?” He started to walk, then run. “Ok, I’m going to let go!”
“I’m ready!” I flew down the street, slicing through the wind. I was like a rocket! A missile! I laughed out loud. I heard Kayden’s feet running after me. The dogs barked again and lumbered along behind as well.
I felt like my possibilities were endless. I could learn to cook—I could go to college! I could finally figure out the fumble out of the end zone rule, I could use the longest words in the world if I wanted to. I was riding a bike, wasn’t I? I did that, and I could do more with Kayden there. With him and all his love, I really could do anything.
Maybe I would!
Other Woodsmen Football Books
The Big Hit
The Comeback Route
The Checkdown
The Benchwarmer
The Goal Line
Defending the Rush
The Last Whistle
The Hardest Cut
Set, Shift, Score
About the Author
Jamie Bennett (that’s me!) is the author of a bunch of super-great books, including more about football (like a book starring Ben and Gaby, The Hardest Cut, and another one about Hallie and Gunnar, The Last Whistle). You would really like them. In fact, you should probably read them right now, immediately.
Seriously. Go find them on Amazon.
You can reach me via Instagram and Facebook @jamiebennettbooks (and join the Rocinante group for extra updates).
Thanks for reading. And if you enjoyed this book, please leave a review!
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