by Cari Quinn
“It isn’t all. You have her mouth. When you smile, dimples flash right here.” He touched her cheek, and she met his gaze, shocked by the tenderness in his expression. Was this the same man who’d just blown her mind and nearly dirty-talked her into unconsciousness?
Now he was giving her pieces of her mama back through memories, good ones this time. And he wanted to take her out for fried chicken. Out in public, where the paparazzi or just gawkers could see.
Her eyes widened. “Isn’t that a little public for you? Next you’re going to suggest that we go to the wedding together.” Before he could make some comment about that never happening, she hurried ahead with a harmless fib to save face. “Don’t worry there. Dr. Pete won’t mind accompanying me.”
“Who the hell’s Dr. Pete?”
“He’s a vet. He offers services to the Haven Cat Rescue.” All true. The wedding bit, not so much. They were friendly enough, but they’d certainly never dated. Sure, Dr. Pete wasn’t called Dr. Hottie for nothing, but she wasn’t the type to mix business with pleasure.
And truthfully, she wasn’t attracted to him. Not like she was to Bryan, who was ten times hotter. And funnier. And sexier. And sweeter—
And he was ranting about something she totally hadn’t paid attention to while she lost herself in those bottle-green eyes of his.
“Huh? What?”
“Does he offer you services, this Dr. Pete?”
Indignation bloomed, and she forgot for a moment she’d been the one to go down this path. “What kind of services do you mean?”
“You know full well.”
“Dr. Pete is a perfect gentleman. You, on the other hand, are so far from it that you’re coming up from behind.”
His eyes narrowed. “Speaking of behinds, I think yours is crying out for a spanking.”
She nearly shivered. “Oh yeah? Too bad I’m busy right now.” Proving it, she brushed her mouth along his wet shaft, trying to ignore the flare of reaction between her thighs at tasting herself on the condom.
“Ah, fuck. Take it off. Please.” He said the word like it was equivalent to swallowing fire. “I want to feel your…God.”
She’d already been removing the latex when he made his request. She rubbed her cheek against his happy trail, inordinately pleased at the jump of his muscles. Then she returned to his cock, licking it up and down until he fisted his hand in her hair.
“Turn your head. Look at me.”
Complying, she rolled to the other side and gripped the base of his erection, drawing lightly on the tip while she gazed into his eyes. His cock jerked in her hold, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. She smiled and rose to her knees, letting her hair trail along his thighs before she parted her lips and drew him inside with a moan of pure appreciation.
“God,” he said. “I can’t watch you and not blow.”
She sucked him for a moment, taking him farther with each pass, finally pulling him free from her mouth with an audible pop. Kissing the head, she gave him a teasing smile. Even with the tension in his body pre-climax, the visible pain had eased from his features. She’d take a respite, temporary or not. Grateful that she could give him one, for a minute or an hour.
Like he’d done for her with the talk about her mama, without even knowing it.
She grinned. “Want the blindfold?”
His laughter followed her as she took him down again, all the way to where no one else had ever touched.
When she sensed he couldn’t handle another second, she fetched another condom. She handed it to him, waiting until he’d done the honors before positioning herself above his shaft. His length jutted up at her, hard and hungry, and all she could think about was that they’d had a conversation about fried chicken just before she gave him a blowjob. That was the beauty of exploring sexually with Bryan. They had a shorthand from knowing each other for so long that lent familiarity even to situations that pushed her boundaries. But she couldn’t help giggling, though she covered her mouth with her hand.
“Yeah, that’s not soul-crushing. Hot chick’s about to sit on my dick and she starts laughing her ass off.” He grinned and reached up for her hand, tumbling her forward onto his chest.
Their lips collided, and he gripped her hips, nudging her thighs open until it was the most natural thing in the world to accept him inside her body. One slow thrust and he was buried deep. The laughter faded away, becoming moans that she breathed into his mouth as she started to ride, tentatively at first, then with growing conviction, her movements bolstered by his low groan and encouraging words. She squeezed her knees together and tightened around him, gasping at the overwhelming fullness of him at this angle. He seemed to take up every free inch in her body. His eyes were fever-bright on hers, and his hands steadied her waist, as if he was the only thing keeping her from flying off the edge of the Earth.
Her climax hit her so fast she didn’t have time to prepare. She struggled to maintain eye contact with him while she relished the unrelenting contractions, needing to know he was right there with her. Then he was coming, too, his hips bucking off the bed, driving his cock so far inside her that the pleasure edged with pain.
He fisted a hand in her hair and dragged her back to his mouth, ravaging hers with a wildness that belied the orgasm he’d just had. His tongue tangled with hers again and again, stringing out the pleasure between them until the residual pulses in her core turned into the beginnings of something all new.
God, this man. How had she gone all these years without having him in her bed? Her throat closed. In her life? Not just occasionally when he blew through town, but on a daily basis. Having his skin against hers centered her in a way she’d never realized she’d been missing. Now she couldn’t get close enough.
Finally he drew back and smiled. “You know, if the Dr. Pete option falls through, we could go to the wedding. Make that our fifth date.”
Her pulse quickened anew. “What about keeping all of this a secret?”
“Oh, it’d still be a secret.” He toyed with her hair, flipping it between his fingers. “Our sexy secret. Go separately. But maybe meet up in a little corner so I can give you something to think about…”
It wasn’t quite an admission of a desperate need to date her, but she’d take it. She’d take all of him, five times or fifty.
Rolling over, she pressed a kiss to his stubbled jaw. She’d be feeling that stubble-burn everywhere tomorrow. She couldn’t wait. “I’m good with sexy secrets if you are.”
“Hell yeah.” His grin arrowed heat through her belly. “So, about that fried chicken…”
Chapter Seven
Sex and fried chicken went together about as well as watching Casablanca with his little sister’s best friend while she painted her toenails. Neither quite made sense. But he enjoyed all of the above that night, and the next day, when he had to get up and head to a brutal training session before going to see his mom, he wasn’t quite as on edge.
Oh, sex hadn’t wiped his brain clean like a dusty hard drive. He knew exactly everything that lay ahead of him. But Jill, just by being Jill, had made the load he carried lighter.
At least until that afternoon with his mother.
The group home appeared welcoming enough, filled with couches and game tables in the common area. There were even small, cozy rooms for the “guests” as they called them.
He found his mother in her cheerful yellow room doing a puzzle. Looking into her green eyes so like his, he struggled to find the words to bridge a decade’s worth of distance. Those vacant eyes sucked him down like hollow pools with no bottom.
His intention had been to keep things casual. He’d even intended to call her by her first name. She hadn’t behaved like his mother in so long that it seemed like a lie to refer to her that way.
But when her eyes narrowed on his and she gave him a hesitant smile, he couldn’t stop what tumbled out of his mouth. “Hi Mom.”
Her smile lasted for another moment before cracking open, allowing the confusion
behind it to spill free. “I’m sorry, but who are you?”
The gut punch had him sagging into a chair at her bedside. She wasn’t pretending not to know him to deliver a message. Genuine puzzlement filled her expression. She truly didn’t recognize him.
“I’m Bryan.” He swallowed and reached for her hand, nearly jerking back at the paper-thinness of her skin as he gripped her fingers. “Your son.”
She blinked several times, then directed her attention at the puzzle again before moistening her lips and gesturing to the water pitcher beside the bed. “May I?”
“Sure.” Relieved to have something to do, he let her go and poured water into a paper cup.
God, he should’ve told Vic he was coming. Maybe then he would’ve been prepared.
As if anyone could ever prepare for this.
She took the cup he held out and drank. When she was finished, she gestured toward the sunflower puzzle in her lap. “A lady always likes flowers from a gentleman caller.”
The fussy speech didn’t suit the free-spirited mother he remembered, but the teasing glint in her smile did. He offered a weak smile in return. “I should’ve brought some. Next time,” he echoed faintly.
He hadn’t been certain he could follow through with the visits, but now, after this, he knew he had to. His mother was still inside there somewhere, and he’d be damned if he didn’t try to get her back.
His visit lasted almost an hour. They started out slow, talking about the framed puzzles on the wall. More flowers and farm scenes and cityscapes covered the faded wallpaper. She seemed to have a story to go with each one. Eventually, he shifted to talking about the past. In time, she seemed to recall him and some of their family memories. Bits and pieces, fragments he tried to coax into full pictures. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember,” she said more times than he could count.
Until he found the right key, the memory of his first high school dance. He said the words “Dad’s tux,” and she laughed, recognition firing in her eyes as brightly as sparklers on the Fourth of July.
“You were too big for it, even then,” she said. “We were trying to save money, and when you came down the stairs with the hems of the pants around your calves, your dad hollered with pride.” She giggled, sounding so much like Vic that his chest tightened. “He was always so proud of you.”
He cleared his throat and fought to keep his matching smile in place. “Not too proud to take a dozen pictures of me looking like an ass,” he said.
“Parent’s privilege,” she said lightly.
By the time he left, he felt both better and worse. He’d committed to seeing more of her, and they’d even shared a laugh or two. He just hadn’t known it would be like that. The nurses said she’d been having a rough time lately, and they’d had to change her medication. In time, she’d be back to her new normal.
Meanwhile, she was locked in a room with bars on the window for her own safety, in a darkness she’d never chosen and probably would never truly escape.
And all he could think about was the wasted time. She wasn’t the evil, heartless woman he’d imagined. The woman he’d built up in his mind as a reason not to trust, to stay closed off to people who claimed to care, simply no longer existed—if she ever had.
On the way out of the group home, his phone buzzed, and he debated letting it go to voicemail. He hadn’t expected how draining it would be to be confronted with his past. Underneath the confusion and reticence, he’d sensed an emotion he never expected from his mother after all these years, and it had knocked him on his ass.
Love. Somewhere down deep, buried beneath her memories, she loved him. And he still loved her, too.
Seeing Cade’s name on the Caller ID, he took a deep breath and leaned against his truck as he engaged the call. “Hey man. Twice in one week is a record for you.”
“Yeah.” Cade’s laughter was more subdued than it had been the last time they’d talked. “Look, I know you’re spending time with your family, so I’ll keep this brief.”
Family was still such a novel concept to him, but Cade was right. He was spending time with his family. Facing his flaws in their eyes as he realized that what he’d hated in them maybe lurked inside himself, too. He just had to hope that even if he had the same flaws, he wouldn’t make the same mistakes.
His mother had left first chance she got. So had he. Different circumstances, yes. Both had hurt the people left behind, like his sister. Now he would be leaving again, and there was Jill. Every moment he spent with her would making that ultimate breaking away more difficult.
Had he made the right decision making this five dates? He’d done it to spare her pain, but what if this only ended up causing the opposite?
“Go ahead,” Bryan said. “What’s up?”
“I found out more about that rumor I told you about. I screwed up. It would’ve been better if I waited.”
Bryan’s already throbbing temples pounded with renewed vigor. Jesus, what now? “Go on.”
“You’ll hear it soon enough, but I thought it would be better if I told you rather than someone else. Like Bannion.”
“Bannion doesn’t tell me much of anything these days.” As true as the words were about their team coach, saying them still stung. Once upon a time, he and Bannion had been tight. Or so he’d thought.
“That big deal people were talking about? Word on the street is he’s bringing on Riley Yorn.”
Bryan clenched his keys. “Yorn’s a quarterback. We have three already. Bannion never utilizes a three-man rotation—” His voice died as the full meaning of what his buddy had said sank in.
Bannion already has two quarterbacks, not counting you. He’s never had four on the roster. Do the math.
But why hadn’t his agent told him about the possible Yorn situation? Either that meant it was an actual problem and his agent was trying to find a way to soften the blow or else it was smoke.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know which.
“You know how shit is this time of year,” Cade went on. “Everyone talks out of their ass. I just wanted you to know in case I’d totally gotten it wrong before.”
“In case. Yeah.” Bryan cleared his throat. “I appreciate it, man, thanks. Later.”
He clicked off before he gave in to the curses hovering on the tip of his tongue. Not at Cade for being the bearer of the truth, at himself for taking something for granted he didn’t know how he’d get by without.
Looked like he’d be pressing his agent for answers sooner rather than later. In the meantime he needed to get rip-roaring—
No. He didn’t get drunk anymore.
Unbidden, the image of teasing blue eyes and soft blond-and-purple hair filled his head.
He needed Jill.
She’d served as the perfect distraction from team business before. Maybe they could go for a two-point conversion. They hadn’t planned to see each other today—and this would likely bring about the third date quicker than he would’ve preferred, because that would just mean they would end sooner—but the idea of ordering room service and watching some lame movie alone in his hotel suite wouldn’t do him any favors, not when he’d be spending the entire time wishing he was with her.
He almost called her, but then he remembered the text she’d sent him last time. Two could play that game.
I’m bored and alone. Want to keep me company?
The answer arrived quickly.
Sorry, I’m at work. I’ll see you tomorrow though.
Tomorrow felt like a lifetime away. He’d come dangerously close to really testing her limits the night before—hell, he’d slapped her clit, and if he hadn’t reined himself in at the last second, he would’ve spanked her ass, hard—but staying away wasn’t an option. A stronger urge had seized him, one that demanded he see her again. Now.
He typed back a reply, already arguing with himself under his breath.
What if I come visit? I can play with the kittens.
Why would you want to do that?
&nbs
p; Because he missed her, that was why. But he couldn’t say that, not without upsetting the balance between them.
He was only in town for another week, and that week would be jammed full with wedding crap and rehab and agent conversations he really did not want to have. Why not steal a thin slice of enjoyment for himself while he could? Especially since once their five dates were over, he was gone. Even if he lost his coveted spot on the Mariners, he’d have to go back and figure out…something. Whatever kept him in the game.
Until then? Jill. Their paths were crossing for the briefest moment. Better to make the most of it before it passed.
Typing quickly, he walked around his truck.
Unless you don’t think you can handle another date with me so soon…
Her response came in seconds.
Whew. Four dates in a week would be so overwhelming. So when should I expect you?
He grinned.
I’m on my way.
Her response was just as swift and even more surprising.
Hurry up already.
…
He was still grinning when he arrived, though his anticipation at seeing her again dimmed when he walked in to find her standing beside a man that had to be Dr. Pete. He was tall and probably handsome in the eyes of chicks who went for the overly slick type. And he smiled at Jill like he could see the transformation she’d begun from hidden sex kitten to full blown seductress. Well, the guy would have to get in line. Until their five dates were over, there was no way in hell he’d put up with another man looking at her like that.
“Hi there,” Bryan said, slipping his arm around Jill’s waist before the gesture had fully solidified in his brain. “You must be Dr. Pete.”
The other man’s smooth smile should have calmed Bryan, but instead he found himself pulling Jill closer.
“I’m actually Dr. Aronson, but yes, around here I am known affectionately as Dr. Pete,” the doctor said with a hearty chuckle. “It’s good. It keeps me humble.”
I doubt that. Bryan covered his dark thought with a smile. “Oh, I understand. That’s the same reason I return home. To keep myself humble after spending so much time on TV and in magazines. It can be exhausting.” He glanced at Jill, who appeared caught between confusion and suspicion. “Darlin’, did you forget to introduce me to your good buddy?”