by Box Set
I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish by coming over here. I have no agenda other than to see her again. Honest. I just…couldn’t be at my place tonight, experiencing its monotony, when I could be here and feeling…something. I can’t forget the taste and feel of her against me from our date last night. When she knew I was Luke and not Rick. Dropping her off and not waiting to see where the night could go was one of the hardest things I ever did. The truth is, the night had gone so well, in a way I wanted to end it before I could spoil it.
I also wonder if I’m throwing myself into this situation because part of me still holds out hope that I can put myself into the mix with her, and something positive will shake out of it. Boy that was a lot of mixed metaphors, but there it is.
Bottom line—I want to know if I could have had something with Pepper if I hadn’t messed up so much with her.
She hasn’t moved her leg.
Soon, she finishes her portion of mac and cheese, and I’m using that term literally. I’d watched in fascination as she carefully—with surgical precision—divided one third of the gooey noodles into a bowl and placed the rest in an airtight container for the fridge.
She sets down her spoon. “So…will you tell me what happened back in high school now?”
I clear my throat. “I told you, it was Tad.”
“Yes, but why did you take the blame?”
Sitting next to her, with my thigh pressed against her and both of us pretending it’s not the next step to…something…has me digging deeper. Anything to delay the moment when it becomes clear nothing else will happen with us. And I’ll have to leave.
But thinking about that incident in high school is difficult because it brings up all my memories of my old man. How he’d insist I compete in that science fair every year, and how he’d beat me when I didn’t win. To him, it was worse than just my failure. I’d lost to a girl—Pepper—every year.
I never resented her, though. Science wasn’t my strong suit. Her projects were better. That last year I’d even screwed up the nerve to ask her out despite her being one of the rich girls. Our high school was so large, I only saw her once a year. This was my last chance.
“I’d stepped away and left Tad in charge of our row of tables.” What I didn’t say was that I’d left to use the last of my tip money from bussing tables on St. Armand’s Circle to buy her a Diet Coke and a hot pretzel. She always got that combo every year. Figured it’d ease the way to asking her out. “When I came back, I…” I hesitate, but she’s a grown woman. She doesn’t need shielding any more. “I found your project destroyed. Tad had written in chalk all over it. I saw you coming, so I did the only thing I could think of.”
She pulls in a sharp breath. “You erased the words by pouring Diet Coke over it.”
I look down. “Yeah.”
“What didn’t you want me to see?”
I grit my teeth. God, I really don’t want to say this out loud. But they weren’t my words. They were Tad’s. “Know your place, bitch.”
She jerks in her seat. “Seriously?”
I nod.
“Jesus. I knew Tad was a budding misogynist. But…wow.”
Yeah. And Tad, who knew I had a crush on her, just stood there chuckling as I took the blame and my project was thrown out by the officials. That night, the beating had been the worst.
It was also the last beating, because after that, I started to work out. Drew up a regimen and a plan, and I left him right after graduation. I never regretted taking the blame, even though it resulted in the extra brutal beating, because it had been the right thing to do.
The night’s gotten way too serious, though, so I ask the one question that’s been burning in me since I walked in. Because she just doesn’t look the type.
I prop my elbow on the counter and lean toward her. Tension slowly takes over her as if she’s poised herself to what’s happening between us without moving a muscle.
“Comic book heroes, huh?” A framed poster hangs in her foyer. And it’s from a comic, not a movie.
There’s that chin lift. And because I can’t help myself, I allow my gaze to drift over to her beauty mark and then down to her lips. A delightful shade of pink rises from the top of her blouse and up her neck. I harden a bit, remembering her flush the other day when I made her come. Four times.
“I don’t remember you being into comics in high school.” But my voice holds no censure, as if she hadn’t established her credentials early enough to be credible. I’m genuinely curious.
“I love to read, but I had no time for it when I was getting my MD and doing my residency. It was all I could do to stay awake, memorize everything, and stay on top.” She shrugs, and I hate that she’s dismissing herself, as if her interests, or how she got there, aren’t important.
“One day I found a comic left in a waiting room while I was doing my residency. I read it, and at first I thought it could just be a way for me to quickly ingest a story during my crazy schedule—get some reading in, you know? But then I fell in love with the form for its own sake. And, well…”—she gestures toward the poster—“who wouldn’t love Rogue?”
Her hands knot tightly in her lap. Waiting for my judgment.
That fierce protectiveness rises in me and makes me want to help her shore up her own defenses, even if it shuts me out. I reach over and rub a thumb over her knuckles, willing her to relax.
“So that’s who that is. I look forward to learning about her. Unfortunately, my comic education only extends as far as watching the next Marvel movie when it comes out on the big screen. Isn’t she part of the X-men?”
She nods and smiles. “Speaking of…”
We’re not going to make it to the credits for Deadpool. We started out innocently enough—popping popcorn (plain for me), fussing around looking for blankets, and arranging our pillows on the couch—but there was a quality to all the innocence, as if we knew more than watching a movie could happen here and were going through all these maneuvers to bide our time and see if the other was on board before fully committing.
First, we shared a blanket, a royal blue one with some kind of stitching in the corners. Pretty, if you like that kind of thing. Then we kept inching closer until I had my arm around her shoulder and she was snugged up against my side. Then I threaded my hand through hers.
Deadpool says, “Love is a beautiful thing. When you find it, the whole world tastes like Daffodil Daydream.”
We were both unmoving under the blanket, but now that stillness has more weight. Deadpool continues to seemingly talk straight to me by telling me to hold onto love and not to make mistakes.
Now each quiet pause in the movie amplifies our awareness. I can hear her heightened breathing. The anticipation tightening her muscles before the next crescendo of the music score drowns our breaths out. Not that there’s a lot of quiet pauses in this movie—it’s pretty kickass. Both action and dialogue, which would normally snag me, but it can’t compete with Pepper. Not even when the hot chick from Firefly pops onto the screen.
“Hey, it’s Inara.”
“Who?”
“Okay. We need to rectify this lack in your life. Firefly?”
“Never got a chance to see it.”
I make a mental note to change that.
Our conversation is like this, like we’re both glad to be talking about things other than the tension building between us. “Oh damn, nice hit,” or “Shit, what did he just say?” Things like that.
The tension skyrockets, though, when things get hot and heavy between Deadpool and the Inara chick. I shift under the blanket. I think her hand shifts closer.
Shit. I give in and lean down to her temple. I hold myself still, my lips just an inch away from her beauty mark. Her breath hitches. I brush my lips across that dot of temptation.
She’s rock still, and I’m psyching myself up to move away, pretend for her I’d misjudged the situation, when there’s movement under the blanket. Next, there’s a death clutch around my neck—
her hand has my T-shirt twisted into a fierce grip. Then she’s yanking my head down to her, and our mouths bump into each other.
Oh yes.
I angle around and plant my elbow on the back of the couch and cradle her head with my other hand. With my fingers and my thumb resting against her cheek, I guide her in for a more controlled but no less desperate kiss, my heart pounding as if I’d just finished log PTs.
Just like the other day at my apartment, we’re attacking each other with our lips, our hands. I stroke my tongue inside and groan. God, she tastes…tastes like…I don’t know what, but it’s Pepper, and it’s intoxicating. And I want it. I want her.
But I hold back, taking my cue from her for how far she’s willing to take this.
She tugs on the snap at my jeans.
Well, okay then.
I angle my hip away to give her whatever room she wants to take. And she takes. Her hot little hand makes quick work of my zipper, and then she grips my cock. Proving that for Pepper I have the control of a high school kid, I nearly come.
Jesus, this woman.
I drag her backward until I thunk against the cushions and she’s stretched out along me, the blanket now partially entangled with our limbs. She strokes me once, twice, but that’s not going to end well for either of us, so I flip our positions. I prop myself on an elbow and drag my mouth across her jaw to the soft shell of her ear. Her hands grip tight on my hips, as if that’s all she can handle right now. I nibble her delicate lobe, letting a tiny breath of air tease her ear, and she gratifyingly shivers.
I brush my hand down the side of her neck and across her arm, reaching back to her hand still at my waist. Her eyes are intent on mine as I thread my fingers in hers and bring her hand to rest above her head. I lean away and take in her flushed-with-pleasure face, her eyes trained on mine, and her chest rising and falling below me.
Did I mention she wears these close-fitting blouses that just do it for me? The tailored primness showcases her fantastic tits and drives me wild. This one’s a cool blue, and the way she’s lying, the buttons look as if I could just brush them, and they’d burst open.
I return my gaze to hers and slowly lower myself down her body. She can stop me any time, my gaze lets her know. She nods jerkily, and I press my lips to the space between her cloth-covered breasts, right on the straining top button. She closes her eyes, and her body slowly arches up.
I’ll take that as a yes to continue.
I nudge the cloth of her blouse with my nose and just as I thought, a little persuasion from my teeth and the button is undone, but the mechanics aren’t going to work this way. I meet resistance to my goal in the form of a bra. I release my grip on her hand and trail my thumb along the skin above her blue bra. My plan? Keep her distracted enough that she doesn’t move her released hand—I don’t need her hot little fingers gripping my cock and ending this way too soon. I tuck a thumb under the edge of her bra and caress her skin. God, she’s so soft.
At first my plan is succeeding. I’ve got her bra pushed down enough that my questing finger can drag across her nipple. It hardens, and she moans. She’s lost in the sensations, and I’m focused on her pleasure and on each detail of her skin. Her scent. Her sounds. But that focus has only served to rocket my need for her higher.
It’s all I can do not to rock my cock against her hip.
To take this to another level. Fast.
So I picture the first day I had to swim the required time in the waters off Coronado and was so numb with cold I feared my balls would harden into icy blocks and sheer off.
But God, her sounds. Her scent.
And possibly because I had to resort to a mind trick to keep myself from just pushing her legs apart and plunging inside, she’s able to move her hand.
And it’s gripping my cock.
Fuck.
“Pepper,” I moan.
“Luke,” she says in a sing-song tease. Then her eyes darken. “Please tell me you have a condom.”
Chapter Twelve
Luke
I’m off her so fast, I could’ve set a new record if jumping upright, shucking jeans, grabbing a condom, and rolling it on were a sport. I toss the blanket to the far end of the couch.
She strokes up my inner thigh with her foot as I edge the last of the condom down. Wham!’s “Careless Whisper” plays as the credits roll behind me, and I smile.
I stretch out over her again and raise the edge of her skirt. I trail my hand up her leg to where I long to be. Whoa—my fingers touch the bare lips of her pussy. I jerk my head up, and she nods to the side with a glint in her eye. I glance over. A dainty pool of blue fabric hangs off the edge of her coffee table—she’d shucked her panties while I’d been preoccupied with the condom.
I grin back at her. “Wicked girl.”
She arches again, but there’s a hint of vulnerability there, and I hate to see that. I brush my lips across hers while I stroke her—she’s wet for me already, and I growl into her mouth I’m so fucking turned on. I’m also relieved as hell, because I’m not sure how much longer I can hold out before I drive my cock into the hot, tight heat of her.
She gives my bottom lip a nip, and that does it. I clamp her hands over her head with one hand and thrust into her, fast and hard. Ah God, it feels like an answer to be inside her again, but fuck if I know the question. All I know is that I’m merging with Pepper and all the feelings she evokes in me, amplifying that sensation.
If being around her is like seeing color for the first time, being inside her is like tasting, feeling, hearing, and swimming in color. Being caressed by it. Yeah, like Daffodil Daydream. And, Jesus Christ, I never want to leave.
I cradle her face and kiss her deeper and harder and find a rhythm inside her that has her squirming and panting beneath me. She’s popping up her hip with each stroke of mine, and too soon my balls tighten and a heat coils in my lower back. I’m not gonna last long. Fuck.
Desperate, I change my angle so that my thrusts are grinding my pubic bone into her clit, and she whips her legs around my waist and makes these urgent, mewling sounds, vibrating against my lips. Not. Helping.
My mind’s gone so primal, I can’t even think straight, much less how to stop myself from exploding inside her before she comes. But the gods of horny-ass men are smiling down on me, because in the next instant, she tears her mouth from mine, bites into the muscle on my shoulder, and convulses around me, her hot pussy clamping down hard on me.
A fierce, primitive joy rushes through me, and I pound into her once, twice, and then detonate inside her with an orgasm so powerful, I thrust my head back and my mind goes blank.
When I’m aware again, I’m sprawled on top of her, my mouth somehow unerringly having found her beauty mark. We’re both breathing heavily, and she has her arms and legs squeezed tight around me. My heart’s pounding so hard against my chest, I’d worry if I didn’t know I have an excellent heart.
But I can’t smother Pepper. Even in the foggy, mushy bliss that is my mind right now, I know that’s not good.
I cradle her and somehow make my muscles obey and coordinate enough for me to turn us on the couch so that she’s on top of me. I love that she’s still got a death grip around me, but worry seeps in when her head seems to be resolutely faced away.
I stroke the hair from her forehead. “Hey. You okay?”
She nods against my chest, but she still doesn’t look at me. Worry now has a strong foothold in my gut.
She shoves upward and says, all rushed, “I gotta go.”
“Sweetheart. We’re at your place.” I try to keep calm, but my heart rate has picked up. Fuck. Did I mess up with her again? “Do you want me to go?”
“Yes. No.” Finally, she looks at me, her eyes bleak. “I don’t know,” she whispers.
I know she enjoyed it—her orgasm was proof. She’s nervous, unsure, and I can’t have that. My heart does a weird wobble.
Her arms are tense, delicate columns on either side of me. I rub my hands u
p the sides and cup her face, stroking her cheeks with my thumbs. “I’ll go if you want. I’ll also stay. I’d love to. I want to. But I also don’t want you worried.”
She visibly swallows. Her gaze searches mine, the struggle to voice what she wants playing out in her eyes.
Then she says it.
“Stay.”
The wobble in my heart morphs into a victory dance. Hell, it might even be glowing and shit.
Pepper
I tuck my blanket under my arm, grab my medical bag from the back seat, and hip-bump my car door closed. Today is the game against Galway New York, and I’m here in a dual capacity, which has me feeling a little on edge, as if I can’t figure out which slot to slide into.
I’d be mad at myself for giving in the other night to this attraction we feel, but it seems futile to keep resisting. Maybe I can find the right balance and not sacrifice my professionalism for a relationship.
The sweltering Florida sun warms my skin as I thread through the cars in the parking lot and head for the field where Luke’s team is playing. It’s different from where they practice, because apparently the regulation field is almost twice the size of a soccer field. I can’t help it—as soon as I clear the concession stand, my gaze darts around the field looking for his now-familiar shape.
My heart beat kicks up a notch as soon as I see him stretching his quads on the sidelines. Behind him, big sports drink coolers are lined up on a table like an army. Most of the people bunched around him are dressed to play, though a few people are already spreading blankets. Luke’s team is wearing their brand-new gold and black uniforms with Sarasota Wolfe Tones and their emblem on the front and Langfield Corporation on the back. The New York team, in maroon and white, is on the other end. Just looking at them, there’s no doubt they’re elite players.
I pick a spot near the table and set down my bag. Luke’s gaze is on me as I snap out my blanket. Call me a romantic sap, but instead of using my car blanket, I brought along the blue one we’d shared watching Deadpool. I hate that I’m a twenty-nine-year-old doctor, and yet I feel like a teenager with my first crush. The truth is, dating was never a high priority once I went to college. I was so focused on my grades so I could get into med school that I didn’t have the time or emotional energy to spare. Which only intensified as I worked through med school and then my residency and fellowship.