That was a mistake because it soon became too much, and he pulled himself out of her mouth with a curse.
Kayla looked distressed. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, I just…” He reached into the nightstand and grabbed a condom. He was so close it was a wonder he didn’t come in his own bloody hand before getting it on. But the promise of what was awaiting him if he held out got him through. Moments later he was hauling her into a sitting position. He placed her legs around his waist and pulled her cherry-red underwear down just enough…then he was exactly where he wanted to be. Inside of her, pistoling up into her, even as he unhooked her bra and threw it to the side. An action that allowed her magnificent set to rub against his chest as she rolled her hips to meet his thrust.
The slap of their bodies was the only sound in the room as they both sought out an unnameable thing in each other, using gravity, friction and whatever physics were required until they came at the same time. Her with a happy cry, him with an urgent groan.
Only then did Mick close his eyes, convulsing into her and shuddering to a conclusion with his arms wrapped hard around her soft, beautiful body.
They breathed hard, clinging to each other as they came down.
“Did that help?” she asked against his shoulder. She was joking, of course, but he could already feel himself growing harder inside her.
“Only a bit, I’m afraid,” he answered, dropping a kiss on her shoulder. “I might need your help again in just a few minutes.”
Chapter Seven
Kayla was trying hard not to get used to this as she and Mick sat in the bathroom’s blue-lit, rectangular Jacuzzi tub, covered in bubbles. Thanks to the half a bottle of perfumed bath soap he had spilled into the bath after not one, not two, but three bouts of morning sex—the third one being mostly her fault—she still managed to feel fresh. She’d once again tried to return the favor of the amazing oral sex he’d given her the night before, and he’d once again ended up inside of her, this time rolling her over on her back and rutting her so thoroughly, she finally understood the meaning of “caveman sex.”
He’d actually been apologetic afterward. Can’t seem to keep my hands off of you long enough to let you finish the job, baby, he’d said. Then he’d insisted that she “deserved a good soak after all that” and that they both needed to eat. But the croissants and coffee had gone cold, so he’d ignored her protests about the cost and ordered room service.
Now here they were in the prettiest-smelling bath she’d ever taken, her back nestled against his chest, while he fed both himself and her strawberries off the plate he’d had sent up. She then reminded herself that this was only a vacation with a very finite end. She should in no way get used to it.
Determined to make this scene a little less romantic, she reached toward the plate and grabbed a square of chocolate only to have it gently slapped out of her hand. “What you doing?” he asked behind her.
“I was just going to unwrap one of those squares of chocolate,” she answered. “I can feed myself.”
“See, that’s why you’d be better off letting me do the heavy lifting when it comes to this breakfast business,” he said while deftly unwrapping the chocolate himself.
He then tore off a third of one of the croissants and buttered it. “Here’s how you do it. Take your buttered bread. Open it up and put the bit of chocolate in between like so, and voilà, you got the best breakfast this side of the Atlantic.”
She bit into the piece of croissant he put up to her lips, and her taste buds reeled; the butter and chocolate melting together in her mouth tasted so good. “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe we don’t eat them that way in America.”
“Lots of things are hard to believe about America. You don’t like our kind of football over there either. How’s that?”
“Well,” she said, pretending to give his question serious consideration. “American football is interesting and exciting with really funny commercials in between. While your kind of football is let me see…insanely boring. Even the cute guys aren’t worth watching go back and forth on a field, barely ever scoring.”
She felt him go still behind her.
“You really hate football that much?”
“No, not really,” she answered. “I guess when it comes down to it, I don’t feel any kind of way toward it. Just, you know, meh.”
She expected him to return her disinterest with some extreme comment of his own. She’d heard Europeans were as caught up in soccer as Americans were in their kind of football. But instead he asked, “So if a big footballer came along, someone with real flash and enough money to stay at this place without somebody else having to put up the dosh—the kind of footballer them paps outside would be gagging to get a picture of—if one of ’em had also put it to you on that plane, you’re saying you’d be like, ‘Thanks for the offer, mate, but I’d rather with this one. Toodle-loo.’”
She squinted because she wasn’t sure she completely understood the question. “Are you asking me if I’d rather get with a famous soccer player than with you?”
“Yeah.”
“No,” she said, her answer immediate. “First of all, I don’t ever want to get with any kind of player ever again, especially one in the limelight. Football, baseball, soccer. I don’t care. I did it once and I’ll never set myself up like that again. As far as I can tell, even the ones who seem nice are liars and cheats.”
The warm water sloshed against her as she turned around to face him. “And second of all, I don’t want to sound too forward, but I like you. And it’s not just about the sex. I think you’re kind and smart and funny…” Her cheeks heated with self-consciousness, but she pressed on. “I mean, you’re a really great and down-to-earth guy, and I’d rather watch you fix a downed electric power line than watch any kind of sports star play whatever he plays any day of the week.”
He abruptly set her away from him before climbing out of the bath.
“Mick?” she said.
He didn’t answer. Instead she watched as he dried off his large body with a towel. The beginning of the erection that she’d felt earlier in the bath was long gone.
“Mick?” she called again.
He left the bathroom without a word of explanation, leaving Kayla alone in the bath to feel not only awkward, but also really, really embarrassed.
She took her time draining the bath and thoroughly drying off. But she needn’t have stalled. When she stepped into the bedroom, she found Mick had also vacated that room. Why had she said that? She hadn’t known the man even twenty-four hours and she’d already gone completely moony-eyed over him. All because he was great in bed, made her laugh and had held her while she cried over her ex-boyfriend the night before.
This is why you can’t have nice things, she told herself as she gathered up her clothes from different places in the room and yanked them back on.
She came out of the bedroom like a prisoner emerging from jail, shame-faced and remorseful over what she’d said. She felt even more so when she found Mick in the main living area, fully dressed in nice pants and a button-up shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wishing she could make it even a few hours without saying or doing anything mind-bogglingly embarrassing that required an apology. “I didn’t mean to creep you out.”
For moments on end he just stared at her. Then he asked, “Where’s your suitcase?”
Wow, he must really be ready to have her out of here. “Um, I took it to my hotel earlier when I went out to get croissants and coffee.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“Because that’s technically where I’m staying,” she answered carefully, not sure why he wasn’t happy she’d moved her things out.
He rubbed a hand over his short hair. “All right, I have to go somewhere now. Somewhere having to do with the pri
ze package. They’ve got a car waiting for me in the garage, but I can’t take you with me.”
She shifted on her feet, just wanting this over. “I understand.”
“While I’m gone, I want you to go back to your hotel—”
She launched herself toward the door then. “Okay, I get it.”
But quick as a jaguar, he got in front of her. “I’m not finished.”
“I’m a big girl. You don’t have to spell it out.”
She canted to the side and tried to get around him, but with that unusually athletic swiftness of his, he got in front of her again. “Kayla, let me finish.”
Kayla shook her head, her body now clammy with humiliation. She couldn’t allow him to finish letting her down easily—no way. She had to get out of there. But when she tried to get around him again, he grabbed her around the back of her neck with both hands, his thumbs on her jaw as he lowered his head until it was level with hers.
“Kayla, listen to me. I ain’t trying to get rid of you. I’m telling you to go back to your hotel, get your bag and bring it back here.”
She stopped struggling. “Why?”
“’Cos you never should’ve taken it out of here in the first place,” he answered.
Then he pulled her to him and gave her a kiss so hot, so laced with obvious desire, she felt it all the way in her toes. Her heart slowly began to come back to life as his lips moved over hers. “I thought you were mad at me for going too fast.”
“No, I was mad ’cos…” He stopped kissing her and let his forehead rest against hers. “…’cos I really like you, too. I’m not used to that, liking a girl the way I like you, and I want you to keep on liking me the way you do.”
She looked into his eyes then, and she believed him. She saw fear there and a hungry desperation that made her want to reassure him that she’d never stop liking him even though they’d only known each other for this short time. “Are you sure I can’t come with you?” she asked.
“No, it’s a one-person thing. A peek-in on the Paris L’élite football club’s afternoon practice, hosted by the president of the club himself. Made the reservation for me only a few weeks ago. And soccer’s ‘insanely boring,’ innit what you said?”
She had said that, and she chided herself for being disappointed about not being able to go with him.
“I’ll be gone for at least five hours, so do whatever you want today. But when I get back, I want you here with your bag. You understand?”
She nodded, happier than she had any right to be to follow his command.
“All right, then.” He kissed her again. And again, then one more time before raising his hands and backing away from her like she was a sinkhole and he was afraid of falling in. “Enough of that. Stop tempting me, woman! If I let m’self kiss you one more time, you’ll be on your back, and I’ll be later than I already am.”
She giggled.
“Why are you laughing again?” he asked her with amused exasperation. “I still have yet to make a joke.”
Chapter Eight
Kayla was still laughing when Mick made it to the other side of the door. He knew because he could still hear her giggles.
But the easy and light feeling that he’d left the room with disappeared as soon as she was out of sight. Christ, what had he done?
It had seemed like a game at first, misleading her about who he was. But what she’d said in the bath about liking who he was pretending to be more than she could ever like a big-star soccer player like he was in real life left him unexpectedly hit by two extreme emotions.
On one hand, his heart swelled to enormous proportions hearing that she’d choose him—the real him—not the big-name soccer player most women from his side of the pond saw when they looked at him.
On the other hand, he’d had to get out of the tub because he liked this girl. He really liked her. He didn’t want to lie to her anymore, but then he also didn’t want to let her go. Not yet anyway. However, he also didn’t think he could keep her if she knew the truth about who he really was.
But he had never been a coward. He’d told some of the biggest soccer players in the world exactly what was on his mind before knocking them in their teeth. He could handle the girl he’d met on a plane. He’d decided then and there to tell her everything, and if she slapped him across the face, so be it.
After he’d left the tub and pulled on some clothes, he occupied himself with checking his many voice mail and text messages from Gerald while he waited for her to finish in the bath. “Where are you? Why aren’t you answering your phone?” the first messages screamed. Then came the text messages, these all in caps, “WHY DID YOU TELL THE FRONT DESK NOT TO LET ANY CALLS THROUGH??? THERE’S A CAR WAITING FOR YOU DOWNSTAIRS. HAS BEEN FOR HOURS NOW.”
Just as he’d been typing back for Gerald to get his knickers unbunched, she’d come out of the bedroom, once again dressed in the shorts and Suns tank she’d been wearing when she’d entered his bedroom that morning. That very morning when she’d come back after he’d thought he’d lost her.
An image of her pulling the yellow-and-orange tank over her head hit him like a lorry. Followed immediately by one of her smiling up at him in her bra and knickers as she took him in his mouth. His erection sprang up anew then, straining against his pants, demanding to be let out, demanding to get inside her for a fourth time. Because he just couldn’t get enough of her.
That was when he realized he’d been lying to himself. He was a coward, a coward for misleading her in the first place and a coward for what he was about to do, which was continue to lie to her. At that moment he couldn’t risk losing her. Not yet.
It had felt like the right thing to do while he was doing it. She really liked him. He really liked her. Lies needed to be told to maintain that equilibrium. But after he left her, the guilt dogged him all the way to the French team’s practice facilities. He could barely pay attention while the club’s new Qatari president showed him around the recently renovated grounds and then out to a full-course lunch at a swanky restaurant. Then to watch the Paris team’s afternoon practice. Then the starting lineup decided to take him to a strip club.
“You are here with us, but maybe your mind is somewhere else, yes?” asked Bruno Monceaux, the French team’s star midfielder.
The club wasn’t like the ones they had in Britain. The women on stage were on par with professional dancers and performed well-choreographed, raunchy numbers designed to both impress and titillate the mostly male crowd.
However, Mick could barely work up the enthusiasm to clap, much less hoot and whistle like the rest of French team members sitting in the club’s special VIP area.
“Maybe you do not like the girls?” Bruno, who had been yelling the loudest of all, suggested. He pulled his phone out. “This is fine. We have those kinds of clubs in Paris, too. I will message my sister. She has many gay friends who will know where to send us.”
“Appreciate that, mate, but I’m all right with the girls,” Mick told him. “Just not these girls.”
Bruno put his phone away. “I see. This girl, I am assuming she is the one who made you miss our practice, the one you brought to France with you. You are thinking of her now?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I like long stories,” Bruno answered. “I read Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables when I was twelve. Two times. Tell me.”
So Mick did. He didn’t know why. He’d been playing on a team since his single-digit years, but he’d never been much of a team player. Always kept to himself, had never enjoyed the close friendships that seemed so easy for other players on his team. He was even half-afraid Bruno would tease him for being this twisted up over a girl he’d only just met.
Instead, Bruno nodded when Mick finished with his story. “I knew this kind of romance once. An American I met while doing charit
y work in Cameroon. We were both there with an international aid organization and we grew very close even though our time together was very short. She knew I played football, but she did not comprehend what that meant. I very much liked her not understanding this part of my life.”
“And how did that end, mate?”
Bruno answered with a Gallic shrug. “Not well. There was a misunderstanding between us and we never saw each other again.” His face darkened with the memory of whatever had happened between him and his girl, but then his face lit up with an idea.
“We are planning to take you to Kentucky after this.”
Mick looked at him. “Kentucky the state?”
Bruno waved off his confusion. “In America it is a state. Here in Paris it is un club. Very discreet—no paparazzi allowed. And if anyone is caught taking a picture of someone famous, they are put out and banned for life. You should invite your woman. We will be in the VIP area, so there will only be you, her and us footballers. You can tell her it is part of your—what did you call it—prize package.”
“So you don’t think I should just tell her? Come clean about who I really am?”
Bruno shook his head with a wave of his hand. “No! No! No! It is certain she will leave you if you tell her the truth now. Show her the very best of times for the next two days, and make it so she likes you very much. So much she does not care who you are and that you lied to her. Then you may tell her. This is a good plan, no?”
The question must have been rhetorical because Bruno didn’t wait for a reply before standing up and yelling something in French to the rest of the team. They all listened intently and then let out a big cheer.
“What you’d say to them?” Mick asked.
“I told them that we are moving on to Kentucky. That you are inviting a girl who must not know who you are. That we must pretend you have won a night with our football club in the VIP area so that you can continue to sleep with her.”
Dim the Lights: Islands of DesireLiquid ChocolateHer Wild and Sexy Nights Page 21