by Naima Simone
Sophia could be endearingly sweet, as her nervous babbling about St. Elmo’s Fire had shown. And in the next breath, blunt and uninhibited with her passion. Even her insistence on time to consider the “arrangement” he’d proposed had struck him as honest. But if his ex had taught him anything, it was not to accept anything at face value. He’d believed Shalene to be the same loving girl she’d been in high school, but she’d proved herself to be the definition of deceit. It might be cynical that a part of him waited for Sophia to follow in Shalene’s footsteps, but it would also be foolish if it didn’t.
He climbed the bleachers until he reached Sophia, now joined by Tennyson. As Dom’s PA as well as best friend, she could usually be found wherever the quarterback was. Both women smiled at him, but it was Sophia’s—with delight and a hint of shyness—that sent heat rolling through him, rivalling the warmth of the day.
“I’m glad you made it,” he greeted her, taking in the body-hugging white tank top and loose, cotton pants she wore. How could she make simple, everyday clothes as tantalizing as the sexiest lingerie? It was a mystery up there with the Sphinx and the Madden Curse.
He’d intended to sit down and talk to her, spend the break trying to figure out where her head was. But one look at her—at her smooth, olive skin that damn near shone in the sun; at the pretty mouth that had been sliding down his chest last night in a particularly hot dream; at the firm, beautiful breasts that his palms itched to cup—and all of his intentions snapped like a dry rubber band.
Clasping her hand in his, he tugged her to her feet. “Hey, Tenny,” he said to his friend as he guided Sophia down the bleachers.
“Hi.” A smile quirked the corner of her mouth. “Bye.”
“Zephirin,” Sophia muttered from behind him, poking him in the back with her free hand. “What are you doing?”
Rather than answer, he led her away from the field and toward the entrance to the locker rooms. Other than pausing to hold the heavy door open for her, he didn’t stop until they reached the abandoned girls’ locker room. He twisted the lock behind them and immediately turned and pushed her against the wall.
“Five days,” he complained, lust roughening his voice. Cupping her face, he tilted her head back, rubbed his mouth across hers. Groaned. “I tried giving you space to think, but…”
He didn’t finish the sentence…couldn’t. On the tail of another groan, he covered her mouth with his, taking the kiss he’d been denied for so long. Goddamn. She tasted as sweet, better, than he remembered. Hunger rode him, and he claimed her like a starving man. His tongue thrust past her parted lips, demanding she give him what he needed—her passion, her surrender. And after a pause so brief he wouldn’t have detected it if he wasn’t so hyper-aware of everything about her, she gave it to him.
Her surrender, her taste—it beat back the past and its dark memories like the sun banishing the stain of shadows. Here, pressed against her body, her flavor filling him, thoughts of lies, pain, betrayal, and a kid who should’ve been his but wasn’t, disappeared. Leaving only Sophia.
Her fingers cuffed his wrists, and she opened her mouth wider without him asking. She curled her tongue around his, sucking it like she’d done to his fingers Friday night, and the pull arrowed straight to his dick. God, she was a drug. Suddenly, he understood why the addicts in his neighborhood risked everything to chase that high. It was a ravenous emptiness that couldn’t be satisfied. But the trying…the trying was nirvana.
He released her face but not her mouth. Skimming his fingers down her neck, he paused to press his thumbs over her pulse. Enjoyed the rapid drum of it. Loved knowing he caused it. Dipping his head, he tongued the hollow and vein that telegraphed her arousal. A whimper escaped her, and damn if that wasn’t his new favorite sound. Well, other than the choked cry she made when coming.
Giving her neck one last lick, he trailed his lips over her collarbone, smoothed his hands down her shoulders and cupped her breasts. Finally.
“We shouldn’t. Not here…” She uttered the protest, but the grip on his head belied the breathy tone. “Zephirin,” she repeated, twisting into his caress. “God. Please.”
He loved that she said his whole name. Everyone else he knew—and even those he didn’t—called him by the shortened version. But his given name in her husky, made-for-sex voice was a stroke to his senses. He wanted to hear it again. And again. He reached down and grasped the hem of her top, tugged it up. Jerked one of the cups of her black bra down.
“Jesus Christ,” he rasped.
Pierced. Sophia’s nipple was goddamned pierced.
Stunned, he somehow found the strength and will to drag his eyes from the most erotic, carnal sight he’d ever seen. The small silver ring with the tiny ball in the middle hadn’t been there the other night. He damn sure would’ve remembered it.
He glanced up at her, and she must’ve read the question and healthy dose of what the hell? on his face because she flushed, her tongue peeking out to dampen her lips. “I, uh, removed them along with my other piercings for the shoot.”
“You are sexy as fuck,” he growled. Pinching the little hoop, he lightly tugged, and stared, utterly enraptured as she cried out, her back arching into a tight bow. “Does it hurt?” Though lust snarled and snapped at him to get on with it, he hesitated, needing to know her limitations. The thought of inadvertently causing her pain was the only thing that could halt the onslaught of want pouring through him like a raging, swollen river.
“Yes, n-no,” she stammered, shaking her head. “Both. Do it again.”
Before the last word left her mouth, he sucked her nipple between his lips. He swirled his tongue around the tip, licking, stroking. Her fingernails bit his scalp, and the minute pricks of pain spurred him on, sent blood pounding like a primal drum in his cock. He drew harder on her, capturing the piece of jewelry between his teeth and pulling. She shuddered against him, her body like a dancing flame beneath his hands and mouth as she twisted and writhed. Her low pleas and whimpers teased his ears, each greedy sound a reward.
He released her flesh with a soft pop and a last lick. Anticipation riding him, he yanked down the other cup and discovered a twin piercing in the other nipple. On a harsh curse, he lowered his head and curled his tongue around the hardened bead, rolling the other wet peak between his fingers. He could’ve easily spent the rest of the afternoon tasting her breasts, playing with the exotic jewelry that turned him on like nothing else. Just when he believed he had a handle on who she was, she kept surprising him. Delighting him.
Tearing his mouth away from her, he trailed a path down the center of her chest, over her belly and the green gem nestled just inside her navel. For some inexplicable—and inexcusable—reason, he’d missed it when dragging up her shirt.
Huffing out a low chuckle, he swiftly tongued her flesh and the jewelry. “Anything else I need to know about?” he rumbled, shooting a quick look up her torso.
“No,” she said, a flash of humor entering those chocolate eyes alongside the lust. “I’m too chicken for the last one.”
“Somehow I doubt you’re scared of anything,” he murmured, stroking her hips.
Once again, something glimmered in her gaze, but this time he couldn’t decipher it. The emotion disappeared under her lowered lashes. “You scare me,” she replied, voice so soft he almost didn’t catch it.
“Why?” He brushed his lips over the smooth, tender skin above the waistband of her loose cotton pants. But he didn’t go any further, waiting for her answer.
She inhaled, and the breath escaped her on a delicate shudder that reverberated through the body he cradled in his hands. “You make me want things I shouldn’t. That I know better than to take. Wanting you makes me selfish.”
The honesty in the bare naked statement tackled him harder than the most hyped up defensive back. As did the hint of something darker. Guilt? Remorse? The insidious voice whispered against his skull. But he pushed the thought away. It didn’t have a place here between them. N
ot with her beautiful, pierced breasts bared, and her sex only inches away from him.
“Be selfish then, baby.” With hands harder than he intended, he jerked down the pants, taking her underwear with them. He shoved the clothes down her legs, revealing her to him. Ignoring her gasp, he cupped a thigh and hiked it over his shoulder, opening her before him. For him. “You want permission? Fine. I give it to you.”
He put his mouth on her.
Her cry bounced off the walls of the vacant locker room, and he groaned against her flesh. Damn, the taste of her. Sweet like the fruit and flowers scent of her skin, except heavier, thicker, with a musk that was all woman. All her.
More. The demand beat against his skull, and he surrendered to it without hesitation. He licked a path down her slit, pausing to nip at each fold before tonguing the clenching entrance to her body. Tilting his head, he spread her wide and drove inside her. As far as he could, enjoying the fluttering of her feminine muscles as they tried to grasp onto him. On a growl, he withdrew, plunged. Withdrew, plunged. Unable to stop. To get enough.
She rocked her hips against him, her hands holding his head in a vise grip. With an abandon that had his cock as solid as a steel pipe, she rode his mouth, an endless stream of words falling from her in a dirty, desperate litany. One stroke of his fist, that’s all it would take to explode. But that would mean releasing her. And that he wasn’t willing to do.
Running the flat of his tongue over her folds, he returned to the top of her sex and the pulsing, pink flesh that had his damn mouth watering for a taste. He flicked the engorged nub, teasing it, playing with it. Her half groan, half wail telegraphed her need, her frustration. Yeah, he would’ve loved to push her, string her on the taut edge of release without letting her fall over. But he didn’t have time, and frankly, not the patience. He craved her orgasm like it was his own. Couldn’t deny her.
Shifting one hand lower and the other higher, he thrust two fingers inside her and pinched her nipple and tugged on her piercing. And sucked hard on her clit.
She went off like a bomb.
Growling against her flesh, he continued thrusting, tugging and sucking. Drawing out her pleasure. Giving her every measure of it.
Only when she fell limp against the wall, their breath rough and harsh in the silence of the room, did he release her. He replaced her pants and underwear, and rising to his feet, adjusted her bra and shirt.
He stretched his arms and flattened his palms on the wall, placing her curves out of reach and granting him time to regain his tattered control. To cool down his body that ached with the need to be balls-deep in her.
“What’s your answer?” he ground out, wishing he could gentle his voice, but with lust a pissed-off animal howling inside him, it proved an impossibility. “Are you going to let me have you? Are you going to take me?”
Her long, dark lashes lifted. The passion hadn’t evaporated from her gaze, but there was clarity there. Enough that when she whispered, “Yes,” his fingers curled against the wall in a fist in triumph.
“Stay,” he said, surprising himself. This thing between them was sex only and temporary. It didn’t include inviting her into his world, or him visiting hers. And yet, with the reminder a loud echo in his head, he didn’t rescind the offer.
Some kind of struggle waged across her expressive face, but finally, she nodded. “Okay.”
Risking a brush of his lips over hers, he pulled back before temptation could reel him in and make him later returning to the field than he already was. But, even as he enfolded her hand in his and led her from the locker room, he couldn’t evict the niggling kernel of unease in his head.
He had to remember the boundaries he’d set. That forgive-and-forget bullshit was for naive assholes.
He couldn’t afford to forget.
Chapter Eleven
“To paraphrase Vivian Ward, the winsome, kind-hearted prostitute from Pretty Woman, the whole seduction thing is nice, but here’s a tip: I’m a sure thing.” Sophia perched on the edge of the leather bucket seat, trying not to stare through the glass floor to Elliot Bay about two hundred feet below.
After camp ended, Zephirin had taken her out to dinner, and she’d let it slip that she’d never been on Seattle’s iconic Great Wheel, a huge observation Ferris wheel on Pier 57. He’d insisted on introducing her to it, complete with a VIP package that included a private ride in a luxury “gondola,” a special VIP T-shirt, photo book pictures, and champagne that they’d both passed on. Him, because of training, and her because she’d never really cared for the fizzy wine. The whole thing smacked of “date night,” and it made her uncomfortable. Dating wasn’t part of their arrangement. Sex. Hot, Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-Face-Melting sex was included in their deal. Not gorgeous, breathtaking views of the bay, city skyline, Mount Rainier, and Olympic Mountains. Not romance.
For five days, she’d argued and haggled with herself about taking Zephirin up on his offer. And she’d allowed herself to give in, to take what she craved with a hunger usually reserved for salted caramel, if she followed two stipulations: keep it about sex, and end it on Sunday before Giovanna returns home.
Then he’d gone down on her in an empty locker room, turning her into a woman who had mind-altering Bill Clinton Sex in public places, and escorted her on a date.
God, she had the spine of a jellyfish. A jellyfish suffering from scoliosis.
“This isn’t seduction; this is me giving you something you haven’t experienced yet. It’s what friends do.”
“Not friends who fuck,” she grumbled under her breath.
“Even friends who fuck.” Without warning, a large pair of hands gripped her waist and planted her on his lap. Before she could shriek a protest, his arm circled her lower back, and the other stretched across her thighs, holding her close to his wide, hard chest. She forced herself to remain upright and not recline against that huge expanse of muscle that seemed to beckon her. “And if I were seducing you, I would do this…” He nuzzled the skin behind her ear—a previously unknown erogenous zone with a mainline to her clit and the breasts he’d been so fascinated with earlier in the locker room. “And this.” He slid a hand up her leg and wedged it between her thighs, cupping her. Her body went from simmering to flash fire in zero-point-two seconds. “And tell you that I can’t get your sweet taste out of my mouth. Can’t erase the sounds of you coming out of my head. Can’t wait to watch you sink down on my cock, while I play with those pretty nipple piercings again as you take me inside.”
Molten lava replaced her blood, and she was half surprised she didn’t exhale plumes of smoke. Stunned and so turned on, she turned her head, checking out the smoky-tinted windows of the gondola to determine if they would give Seattle and God a show if she straddled him right there on the Great Wheel.
She cleared her throat. Fought not to fidget on his lap. “Then I guess it’s a good thing you’re not trying to seduce me.” When his low chuckle reverberated in her ear, she scrambled for a safer topic. Anything to divert her attention from the fireworks snap, crackle, popping in her panties. “Tell me something about yourself,” she blurted, picking up the conversation they’d started in his kitchen the previous Friday. “Why football? You seem so different from other players that if I’d met you on the street, I wouldn’t have guessed you played the sport. You’re calmer, quieter, smarter…kinder.”
He studied her for a long, silent moment. “And you know a lot of football players?”
She shrugged, now wishing she’d kept the last part to herself. As her statement replayed in her head, it sounded biased at best, insulting at worst. “A few. From high school. They were complete assholes.” The words slipped past her lips without her conscious permission. But once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop. To stem the flow. “They were loud, obnoxious, cruel…”
“Bullies,” Zephirin quietly interjected. “They bullied you, Sophia?”
“Yes.” Releasing a sigh, she tried to rise from his lap, but his arms tightened, holdin
g her in place. Rubbing a hand over her bare arms, she shook her head. “I know it’s silly to stereotype a group because of my experiences with a few people. It’s been years since I graduated high school. Years since I was tormented daily for the crimes of being different, shy, and insecure. It’s not like it was just the jocks. Others joined in, but the athletes—the gods of our school—were the ringleaders. Especially if my sister rejected one of their advances, then I often received the brunt of their embarrassment and anger. For me, high school was hell. It’s why I chose the peacock for a tattoo, not because it’s pretty.” She shook her head, remembering the lame excuse she’d given him the night they met. “The peacock symbolizes renewal, awakening, guidance, and protection. It reminds me of where I was and how far I’ve come.” She huffed out a part-mortified laugh, fixing her gaze on the icy peak of Mount Rainier. “God, I’m sorry. I must sound so pathetic. Good thing this isn’t a date, huh?” she teased, trying to cover for unloading her emotional shit all over Zephirin and Elliott Bay.
“Look at me.” The command came seconds before a hand stroked up her back and tunneled into her hair, ensuring she obeyed. She met his gold and green eyes, bracing herself for any wisp of pity. And almost wilted in relief when she didn’t find it. “Never apologize for the inexcusable, abusive actions of other people. You might’ve gone through hell, but you came out strong. Beautiful. The toughest, most indestructible swords are forged in the hottest fires. And the longer they remain in, the more resilient and shatterproof they are. That’s you. Let me put it in terms you understand. What’s that sword the king in Lord of the Rings carried? The one that elf brought back to him? You’re that sword. Broken. Remade. Indestructible.”
Well, hell.
Tears stung her eyes, and she quickly batted her lashes, willing them away. He’d called her Andúril, Aragorn’s sword. That had to be the absolute sweetest compliment she’d received. Ever.