“Jazz, that’s not what I’m saying.” His cell rang a fourth time. He looked at the caller ID. It was his agent’s number. “I have to get this.” He turned. “Reed, what is it?”
“Devon, it’s Trina, your agent’s switchboard put me through to you. I think we should—”
He closed his cell. He didn’t need this right now. He turned, seeing that Jazz had grabbed the towel off of the lounge chair and gone back into the house.
Jazz closed and locked the patio door and didn’t stop until she was in her room with the door closed behind her. She leaned back against the frame and thought about what had just happened.
She had actually fallen for Devon and fearfully pushed him away. Now it was over. They both knew it. He had made it abundantly clear. Her rival was a football contract. She looked at her suitcases already packed for her trip back to New York tomorrow. It was perfect timing. All she had to do was call a car service and go.
She went into the bathroom and turned the water on full force. She got into the shower and let the warm water pour over her face and down her body. She intended to wash away everything she felt for Devon. But she didn’t; she couldn’t. And she knew right then that running away this time would lead her back to where she was before: alone.
Devon was the first man to make her feel like she was alive. Whereas other men cautiously tip-toed around her feelings, he didn’t. He spoke up and told her the truth, whether she wanted to hear it or not. He seemed to know and understand her, even when she didn’t want him to. Savannah was right. He had figured her out, and it had scared her. Everything she ever wanted in a man was there in him.
She felt a loss of what could have been. In all actuality, she was tired of being alone and tired of running away. After the shower, she put on her robe and lay across the bed. A few minutes later, she fell asleep. She dreamt about Devon.
Just like she remembered their first night together, a storm raged. Thunder rolled and lightning flashed in the distance. Jazz awoke and sat up, seeing Devon lying beside her. He was asleep. He had come to be with her sometime as she slept. She looked down the length of his naked body admiringly. She instantly wanted him. All she had to do was enjoy him.
She reached out and touched his body. He was hot. She ran her hand across his shoulders, over his chest and down to his stomach. The strong muscles tightened beneath her hands as his eyes opened. He smiled at her. She leaned in and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her body and pulled her close as his tongue delved into her mouth. He pulled, releasing her tied belt, and ran his hand down the center of her body. He caressed her breasts, rounding his palms on her nipples. She moaned with lustful longing. He pressed between her legs, opening them to him. Her body quivered. Her stomach fluttered, and every nerve ending spiked. She was dizzy with desire.
He rolled and slid on top of her. Her legs wrapped around his body, and in an instant he was inside of her. She closed her eyes and smiled as their dance began. The motion of their bodies moved like a pulsating wave as their passion swelled. Faster and faster they stroked. She could feel her body soaring higher and higher on sensuous waves of ecstasy. He was taking her there. Higher and higher, faster and faster, she felt the pinnacle coming.
When she woke up moments later, the room was dark. She looked at the clock. She’d been asleep for two hours. She lay there, alone, with the memory of the dream fresh in her mind. The wild, wanton intensity was still so vivid. She began thinking about Devon and everything he’d said. She knew it was over, but she wanted to be with him just once more.
She got up, slipped on a dress and went downstairs. Melanie wasn’t back yet. She went outside and looked around. Devon was obviously gone. She walked down to the beach. The night sky was clear, and a million stars sparkled above. She began walking. Farther down the beach she saw a spark of light flash in the distance. She walked toward it. As she got closer she saw that the spark of light was actually a small pit fire just a few feet away from a house—Devon’s house. It seemed to beckon her closer. She walked toward it like a moth to a flame.
As she neared, she saw Devon sitting there in silence. He had his shirt open. His body was breathtaking against the fire’s blazing colors. He held a drink in his hands as the fire crackled and sparked against his skin. She walked over and looked down at the man who had captured her heart. He looked up.
Chapter 16
EXTERIOR—BEACH
Knowing it was over was hard to accept, but knowing that he had hurt Jazz and she hadn’t forgiven him was devastating. Devon sat and watched the blaze erupt as he tossed another log onto the fire. The flames shot up high as cinders shattered and scattered into the night air. He watched them drift upward then slowly dissipate into the darkness. He stared into the luminous glow from the outdoor fire pit, looking for his answer. It didn’t come.
He took a sip of his drink. The amber bourbon burned down his throat and settled in his gut. It was the only thing he felt, and even that was numbing. The fire crackled as flames shot up again. He looked into the blaze, then just beyond. Jazz appeared out of the darkness. At first he thought she was a vision, but he knew she wasn’t. She was dressed in a long white fitted dress. She walked around the fire and stood beside him. Devon looked up at her. His prayers had been answered. Neither spoke for a few moments. They just stared at the fire. “May I join you?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said.
She sat down beside him and reached for the glass in his hand. She took it, smelled it and then took a deep sip. She shuddered instantly as the bourbon burned her throat. She took another sip and then gave the glass back to him.
“I thought you didn’t drink.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t drink. I said that I seldom drink. There’s a difference.”
He nodded. “Jazz, you have every right to hate me right now. I understand,” he said quietly. “I hate myself.”
“Thanks for the permission, but I don’t really need it.”
“Please, let me finish. I was wrong, and what I said at the café wasn’t true. I know that now. You’re an incredible woman, a very brave woman.”
“No, everything you said at the café was true. It was just hard hearing it from you. It’s scary to know that you could see me as I am. How can you know me so well and just have met me?”
“Melanie chose you for me, and I chose you for me. When I was away, you were all I thought about. My agent told me I had a choice to make—my contract or you.” She looked at him questioningly.
“Can they do that?”
He smiled and nodded. “Sure, they can release me right now if they want. They just have to sign the papers and it’s over. But there’s no contest. You’re my heart’s choice. It’s you, always you, forever you.”
“Devon, don’t. This is too much responsibility. What if we don’t work out? You’ll have nothing—no contract, no endorsements. What happens then?”
“You need to live in the moment,” he whispered. “Don’t worry about tomorrow.”
“But this is your life.”
“No, Jazz, you are my life.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing here. I just know that I can’t run away anymore. I want to be with you.”
He smiled and nodded. “That’s good, ’cause I want to be with you for a long, long time. I love you.”
“When you said that you…” She paused.
“…that I love you,” he finished for her.
“Yes, you do know that we don’t even know each other, really. We’ve never even been out on a real date before.”
“That’s just it. My heart knows everything there is to know about you. I know what makes you happy and angry. I know what hurts you. I know what makes you laugh, and I know what makes you cry.”
“Are you sure you’re not confusing sex with love?”
“Jazz, this is love. It’s not about making love to you, which is something I intend to do for the rest of our lives. But what I feel in my heart, in my soul, for you isn’t about
some kiddie infatuation or some leftover teenage crush. It’s about a man seeing a woman across the room and knowing in that instant that she was his. Now, I don’t know about rainbows and fireworks and all that other stuff that love is supposed to be. I just know that the moment I saw you, I knew you were the one for me.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She rested her head on his shoulder, then touched his face gently and smiled.
“Okay, so where does all this leave us?” she asked. “Where do we go from here?”
He looked up at her with hopeful eyes. “We start over from the beginning.”
“The beginning?” she asked.
“Yes, the beginning. Jazelle Richardson, would you do me the honor of going out with me? There’s a place I’d like to take you. It will be perfect for our first date.”
She smiled wide. “Hmm, let me think about it,” Jazz joked.
“You’re gonna make me suffer, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Oh, definitely,” she promised, chuckling quietly.
He smiled and nodded. “I’m looking forward to that.” Knowing that she was able to joke, even at his expense, was a huge relief off his mind. He stared into her promising eyes. She would always be his heart’s choice. They fell into an easy silence as each turned back and looked at the fire. It had begun to die back. The flames weren’t as bright, and the sparks were subdued. After a while, Devon spoke.
“My father was a professional football player. He was good, very good. He met my mother in college, and he said it was love at first sight. She got pregnant. They got married and had two kids. I’m the oldest. I have a younger sister. She lives in San Francisco and owns a small ad agency. My mother and father divorced when I was about twelve years old. They were having problems. His career had really taken off, and the offers were pouring in. Women were always calling the house looking for him. He loved the attention. My mother didn’t. She left him, and he filed for divorce the next day, citing desertion. I remember my mother was devastated. They didn’t have a prenup, so, angry and hurt, she took half of everything he had. We moved back here to Sag Harbor to live near my grandparents.
“A week after the divorce was final, my father remarried. Peggy, my first stepmother, was only ten years older than me. They’d been practically living together for two years. Shortly after their nuptials, my father got hurt on the field. It was a career-ending hit. His contract was dissolved. At the time no other team would pick him up.
“The marriage lasted about a month after that. He had a prenup, but in the span of four months Peggy nearly bought him into bankruptcy. He got some of it back—the houses, cars and jewels—but not everything. Dawn, wife number three, whom he was seeing while with Peggy, lasted a year. He tried to make a comeback, get another contract, but it never worked out. He coached for a while. His heart was always out on the field.”
“What about your mother? What happened to her?”
“My mom remarried a nice guy. She and Gordon, my stepfather, own a real-estate company here in Sag Harbor. They have a daughter, my younger sister. She’s in college now. They buy, sell and flip houses. They’re the ones who were able to get this property back in the family. It originally belonged to my mother’s family decades ago.”
“Is your father still coaching?”
“No, he’s a man of leisure now. He married a very wealthy woman who loves having an ex-football player on her arm. I guess its poetic justice that he became the trophy spouse he always wanted to have.”
“How your father’s life turned out—that’s why you want this new contract, isn’t it?” He nodded. The honesty of his answer surprised her. “Are you afraid of turning into him?”
“Yes.” The pain and sadness in his eyes pierced right to her heart.
She chuckled to herself. “Aren’t we a pair? You’re afraid of turning into your father, and I’m afraid of turning into my mother.”
“Yeah, how about that.”
“So I suggest we stop it.”
“Us, being together?” he asked cautiously.
“No, being afraid. I’m not my mother, and I never will be. You’re not your father, and you never will be. The sum of our experiences led us on a different path than them. We need to stop being concerned about being like them and just focus on being who we really are.”
He smiled. “You know, you’re pretty smart.”
She smiled brightly. “I’m not just a pretty face.”
“No, you’re so much more,” he said softly. She reached out and stroked his face. Then she leaned in and kissed him. Passion from the dream, from her heart, from her soul, exploded. She wrapped her arms around him and climbed onto his lap. He held her tight. The kiss was perfect. It was sweet and tender and promising all at the same time. When it ended, she smiled and leaned back. He held her in place, still on his lap. She ran her palms over his chest then touched his nipples. His body bucked impulsively. She smiled and touched him again, just seconds before he grabbed her hands to still them. “What was that?” she asked knowingly.
“Nothing,” he said.
She nodded, then reached up and started unbuttoning the front of her dress. She worked her way slowly down to her navel. It was obvious by then that she had nothing on underneath. Devon leaned in, kissed and nuzzled her neck. “I think we need to go inside.”
“I think you’re right,” she whispered back, having felt the thick hardness of his erection against her thigh.
Devon picked her up and carried her inside. He closed and locked the doors behind them, then took her up to his bedroom. He gently sat her down beside the bed. “Now, where were we?” she teased. “Oh, right, I remember now.” She pushed him down on the side of the bed, then climbed onto his lap again. She sat facing him with a smile that could only be considered seductively menacing. “Right about here,” she leaned in and whispered close to his ear. Then she continued unbuttoning her dress. Devon watched attentively. Nothing could tear his eyes from her at that moment. When she finished, she opened the dress wide.
Devon’s mouth went dry as he gazed lovingly over her naked body. She was perfectly, deliciously curvaceous in all the right places. His eyes roamed freely, taking in everything she offered. Greed excited him. He wanted all of her, everything all at once, her flat stomach, her firm hips, her narrow waist, her rounded rear and her lip-licking legs. But it was her taut breasts that drew him first and foremost. They were the perfect mouthful, and he so enjoyed gorging himself. He encircled her waist and brought her forward as he leaned in. He kissed her neck, her shoulders and each pebbled nipple. Then he feasted.
Jazz held tight to his shoulders as he caressed, stroked, licked, teased, tasted and tantalized her body. She gasped and shuddered. Her desire soared as his passion and hunger devoured her. The fierceness of his mouth and hands made her dizzy with anticipation. She wanted more.
She leaned back, stood and removed the dress completely. Devon’s jaw tightened and his heart pounded thunderously. His devout admiration intensified a hundredfold. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered.
“And one of us is entirely overdressed,” she whispered back. Devon immediately slipped out of his sweats and sat down. The firm hardness of his erection didn’t. Jazz smiled and slowly turned around, allowing him to see every inch of her. The strained tightness of his swollen erection was consuming him more and more. His breath quickened, body throbbing with unrestrained need.
Jazz saw the arousal and the wanton desire in his eyes, but she still wanted more. She walked over to the night table where she’d seen him get condoms before. She opened the drawer and pulled out several. She tossed three onto the bed, then opened one. She eased it out of the pack and blew into it, then tied it off. She caressed it, handling and holding it as if it were him. She touched it to her body. The sight was erotic and sensuous and seductive.
She tipped the latex nib to her full lips and kissed it. Then she lowered it to her nipples and traced it around her breasts, then down across her abdomen. She traile
d it to her waist and hips, then lower still. She touched it on her thighs, then turned, slowly stroking it over her rear and between her cheeks. She turned around again and moved closer to her attentive audience.
Devon had followed the condom’s mesmerizing trail over her body. His protruding erection ached and begged to be satisfied. He grabbed a condom from the bed and covered himself. His body tensed and shook in readiness.
“Tell me what you want, Devon,” she said. “Tell me what’s your heart’s choice.”
There was no thinking or considering, no decision to make. He knew there was, is, and would only ever be one heart’s choice for him. “You,” he said decisively, without an instant’s wavering. “You, only you, forever you and solely you, Jazelle. You are my heart’s choice.” He took her hand and pulled her closer between his legs. She raised her leg to straddle him, but he stopped her. He intended to first show her exactly what he meant.
Jazz closed her eyes as she stood and reveled in the pleasure of his mouth and hands on her body. The feel always excited her. His mouth was hot and searing, and his torturous tongue bedeviled her in every way. His hands were large and not quite rough, but manly and possessively strong. And when he licked, sucked, tasted and touched her, she burned. And right now, she was a blazing inferno.
He turned her around, placed his hands on her shoulders and slowly, lovingly went lower. He touched and caressed her back, her waist and her rear. His hands and mouth were everywhere. She gasped and moaned in mind-numbing delight. He drew her closer to lean back against him. She looked down, seeing his hands covering her breasts. He teased her nipples with one hand as the other went lower.
She laid her head back against him as he brought her down to sit on his lap again. She looked down. His erection stood up between her legs. The sight, the knowing and anticipating that this was for her, was exciting her even more. Her body tingled. She began moving her hips and gyrating her body.
Devon kissed her shoulders and back gently as his hands stroked her body. Her lustful hunger abounded. She couldn’t get enough of him. Maybe it was the dream she’d had earlier, or maybe it was their talk. Whatever it was, she knew that she wanted him now. She quickly reversed herself, facing and straddling him. Her hunger in wanting him was insatiable and apparently so was his.
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