by Stacey Lynn
Seeing Oliver walk through my small store as I opened the door and led him through made my pulse race in a way it hadn’t yet around him.
I’d always had Beaux’s support. It was what we did for each other. I’d made decent money in college selling to other college students. I made decent money now with my online-only store, in addition to making simple items in bulk and selling them to online boutique clothing stores like Modern Vintage.
Yet seeing Oliver Powell walk through my building, glancing through the display cases and running his fingertips along the edge of the glass like he was afraid to leave a smudge, created a lump in my stomach..
“You make all of this?” he asked, staring at some simple, thick bracelet cuffs. “How?”
I cleared my throat and walked to him, setting my purse near the register counter on my way. “In the back. I have a workroom where I design and make everything.”
“Show me.”
I looked at the clock on the far wall. That space was personal. And a disastrous mess. Letting Oliver into that sacred space of mine would show him more of me than I wanted to reveal.
I didn’t answer. I stared at the door that led to the workroom and private restroom. That lump in my stomach grew larger.
“Shannon?” Oliver asked. “Can I see it?”
It was a tipping point to something I didn’t fully understand. I would essentially be baring myself to him, not my body, but my soul and all my innermost desires…if he could see it through the chaotic mess I lived in.
He walked toward me, his presence growing larger and heavier until he was next to me. From the corner of my eyes I could only see his profile, the way lines popped and appeared at the outer corners of his eyes when he ran a hand through his hair and exhaled harshly.
“I’m guessing this is how I felt when you saw me with Ralph and Winne.”
I laughed before I could stop myself. “Stripped raw? Vulnerable?”
I couldn’t look at him. My palms were sweating and my pulse was racing.
“I didn’t know why I wanted you there, then you were and I didn’t know what the fuck to do about it.”
Another harsh laugh fell from my lips. I swiped my mess of a hair off my neck, which burned under his seeking gaze.
I nodded once, understanding what he was saying in a way I didn’t think anyone else could.
He held himself away from people—whether from his past or maybe because of his notoriety, I didn’t know.
I just knew I did the same. I was Beaux Hale’s sister, and with that I was used to putting up walls, not allowing many people to get close to me for fear of being used. Patrick had broken through and then blown it to smithereens. Only Melissa had ever been someone I fully trusted.
Granted, I could walk through malls without recognition or being hounded for autographs, but there were plenty of times my name had been paired with Beaux when pictures of us out for dinner or at the ESPY awards surfaced.
“Okay.” The word was a whisper, pulled from my throat before I could choke it down.
He followed me through the rest of the store while I stalled and moved as slowly as I could. I realized halfway there that Oliver wasn’t following me. He was lingering, looking at every single piece of jewelry I’d made with softness in his eyes. He had an appreciation for what I poured my heart into.
Damn him and his hidden kindness.
I was trying to walk away from him, and he was pulling me closer to him without a word or a touch, just his respect.
My keys jangled in my hand, getting his attention from a selection of leather-wrapped cuffs with silver accents around the edges.
“I have a friend who would love these,” he said, pointing at a pair of braided leather cuffs, gold metal stamped along the border. They were edgy and country and I loved them. I’d made them the other day after walking past a bar where country music had filtered through the doors.
The music, the sudden realization I was in the South now and everyone loved their country down here, had inspired a whole new selection of designs. Those were the only two I’d completed.
“I just made those the other day,” I admitted, feeling something churn in my stomach at the mention of a friend. A female one.
He was allowed to have them, after all.
I turned away and unlocked the back office/workroom before he could see that it’d bothered me. I had no right.
“Holy fucking shit,” he whispered when he walked up behind me. He still wasn’t touching me. I suddenly wanted him to be. “Did someone break in?”
Chapter TWELVE
OLIVER
I didn’t know where to look first as I took in the crowded and destroyed space. Wherever I looked, it was a disaster. Buckets of metal, different sizes and different colors with smaller buckets and drawers pulled open, their contents scattered all over the place.
Tools and paper littered the tabletops. I spied a small area with a laptop, and remnants of takeout and bills and more paper and more tools covered what I assumed was a wood desk. It was hard to tell.
The room looked like it’d been invaded and trashed by someone desperate.
Her laughter pulled my eyes off the space and to her, where a furious red heat bloomed on her cheeks. “No. I’m just…really messy.” She waved her hand out, but she didn’t need to—it was obvious and I had never been so surprised by anything about this girl until this moment.
And why this was what shocked me, rocking and knocking something hardened loose inside my chest, I had no idea. “But you’re always so put together.”
I was baffled and I couldn’t hide it.
“Beaux’s made fun of me for it, for like ever, I think.” She shrugged and walked toward what I assumed was her desk. She picked up a pile of papers and set them down again. “I’ve never been good at cleaning, or picking up, and my mind works better in the chaos. Does it scare you?”
Strangely, my dick twitched and hardened beneath my shorts. I saw her guarded and careful, quiet and held back, almost too proper and perfect in the few times I’d seen her. This…this rattled me…made me see her in a different way. A woman who was frantic and hurried and creative, someone who lived inside her head more than out of it.
“No. It doesn’t scare me.”
She caught the gravelly tone in my voice and quickly glanced away. “So this is it. This is where the magic happens.”
She picked up a set of pliers and tossed them into the bucket. From the top of it, I saw handles to other tools. Behind it, some sort of table saw and a handheld circular saw.
I thought of her wielding it, slashing through metal, and my dick hardened further.
This wasn’t sexy. It was a disaster and messy, but I wanted to be making a different kind of magic.
Her jewelry was incredible. Beyond what I could have possibly imagined. I had pictured tiny jewels and flamboyant rings. Typical charms on silver and gold chains.
Nothing I thought of came close to the creative magnitude that had stolen my breath as soon as I saw it.
She was letting me see it, despite thinking we were moving too fast, despite wanting to run from me. A part of her, I knew, felt the same way about me that I did about her. There was a pull between us, magnetic and strong and fierce. Neither of us necessarily wanted it, but it also couldn’t be denied.
Running was futile.
Burning it out, impossible.
I memorized plays and studied my opponent for a living. I studied game films and had played football long enough to adjust my game plan in a split second on the field when I saw a defender barreling down on me.
For the last seven years, since I’d played the field since Serena walked away, her pockets lined with millions, no one had ever made me want to change my game plan.
This woman…this sexy as fuck, intelligent, beautiful, kind, guarded, and fucking messy as hell woman rocked everything beneath my feet.
I struggled with what was happening inside me before I realized she was watching me, waiting for
my judgment.
“You’re talented,” I admitted. A strange buzzing whirred maniacally in my ears. “Incredibly talented. Everything I can see is absolutely stunning, and I’m not just saying that to get in your panties.”
I flashed her an awkward look, one I hoped like hell she let slide.
My chest burned. My shirt or my skin was too tight. I needed to get out of there and I suddenly understood her reaction that morning in the shower.
I was too much for her.
She was too much for me. She made me feel too much, think too much, question fucking everything.
“Thank you,” she muttered, the bright red on her cheeks fading to a dull pink.
I had the urge to reach out and smooth it away with my thumb. Tell her how much she impressed me. Spill my guts at her feet and hope like hell she didn’t stomp all over them.
I shoved my hands to my hips to stop myself. She had shown me her inner sanctum, and doing so had blown everything to smithereens.
“I should let you get to work,” I mumbled, looking around everywhere except at her.
“Okay.”
She didn’t stop me. Didn’t move or seem to notice the insanity burning deep inside me. And it was all her fucking fault.
“I need to go work out.”
“I’ll let you get to it then.” She set a stack of bills she’d been flipping through down on the desk and walked toward me. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Okay.” I stepped back and out of the room, hoping like hell the open warehouse feeling of the front area would fill my lungs with a cooling breath. Everything buzzed brighter and hotter as she walked me to the front door.
I could barely look at her when she pulled it open, stepping aside so I could walk through. What in the hell would she see on my damn face? The look of a man who had just realized that for the first time in over a decade he actually thought he was falling for some woman?
It was bullshit. I’d known her over a week, seen her a total of four times—five if you counted this morning. I didn’t believe in that “first sight” fantasy bullshit unless it was lust.
This was more, though—headier—and it made my head spin.
“I’ll see you later?” I asked, barely able to choke out the words. I was lost, free-falling.
“Bye, Oliver.”
I heard the hurt in her words, the total misunderstanding from everything that was slamming inside my brain, and I couldn’t articulate it.
I didn’t correct her, either. There was no fucking way this was goodbye.
I wouldn’t say goodbye to her. Not ever.
Where in the hell did that come from?
I jerked my head when I got to my car. She was still standing in the doorway, arms crossed protectively over her stomach like she was trying to shield herself from me again.
I didn’t think.
I hurried back to her, not caring that she jumped in surprise when I rushed her. I pressed my hands to her cheeks. My rough and callused palms scraped her soft and tender and fucking delicious skin.
I kissed her. I kissed her hard and long and shoved my tongue deep inside her mouth as she gasped in shock. Without words, using the only thing I could think of—my hands and my tongue and my sudden erection clamoring to get out of my shorts—I fucking showed her everything I was thinking and feeling.
The sudden onslaught of emotions, the thick desire to slam her into the door and fuck the daylights and brains out of both of us, had me pulling back, both of us gasping for breath, her eyes just as wide and feral as mine.
“What in the hell was that?” she asked, wiping across the bottom of her lip.
I followed her finger, pressing less furious kisses long her bottom lip.
“I don’t know,” I said, gasping for breath. “I don’t fucking know. I don’t know what’s going on, but that wasn’t goodbye. Don’t say that to me.”
I was desperate. Sinking and soaring. Falling and flying. Twisting and unraveling.
Nothing made sense except the taste of her on my lips and the feel of her trembling body against mine.
“I’ll see you later, Shannon.”
I let her go before I did everything I wanted to do to her.
But I’d see her later. I’d be drilling my cock deep inside of every inch of her, claiming her and making her mine before either of us realized it could be the worst thing we ever did.
***
“Ice your ankle, twenty minutes on, ten minutes off.”
“I know how to handle it.” I barked at the athletic trainer wrapping my ankle. I had no one to be pissed at but myself. And thankfully, it wasn’t sprained, just twisted and swollen. I’d be fine by next week, but the fact that I hadn’t been able to clear my head, focus on the game and the practice like I usually did still pissed me off.
Fuck, I’d gotten hurt in a practice where we didn’t even wear our pads.
Coach Pomville pushed through the door, slamming it so hard it banged against the windowed wall. “What in the fuck was that?” He shouted at me like I’d lost the Super Bowl.
I had no one to blame but myself, but I didn’t cower to the coach. Not anymore. I had too many years under my belt. Too many bad games and bad practices.
“I’ll get it together,” I assured him. “Just a misstep, is all.”
“‘Just a misstep, is all.’” He mocked my words and shooed the trainer away after he set an ice pack on the table. I was still in my shorts, although I’d ripped my shirt off before I was back to the locker room.
I looked Coach directly in the eyes as he stalked toward me.
“You know what we have riding on you this season? A fucking contract extension. You can’t pull shit like this. You can’t be distracted for a single fucking second. You understand that?”
I understood. More than he did. My five-year contract was up at the end of this season and I was getting old.
One bad game would be the difference between millions of dollars and retirement.
“I said I’ll get it together.”
“See that you do.”
He left as quickly as he had entered, already barking down another player’s throat, with the door slamming shut behind him.
Coach Pomville was an awesome coach. He knew when to motivate, knew when to kick ass and smack helmets. I admired him, had mad respect for him both on and off the field.
I’d been off today. I was still sore from last night’s game because the hits weren’t as easily shaken off anymore when men almost ten years younger and stronger than angry bulls charged at me.
I needed to be more focused.
I would be, too, after I settled shit with Shannon. While I should have been focused on plays and receiving and running and taking off from the line of scrimmage, I had been thinking about black curly hair all over my pillows and heaven-scented pussy.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I picked up my phone and called her.
“Hello?” She sounded distracted when she answered, more than a little irritated.
“You still at Stamped?” I asked, barking out the question like Pomville had just snapped at me.
“Oliver?” The phone went quiet. “Oh, sorry,” she said. “I didn’t look at the ID before I answered.”
“You always this rude to unknown callers?” A grin tugged at my lips, the urge to tease her unbearable.
“No.” She sighed, and I imagined a finger going to those curls, wrapping it around her finger before she tugged and let it pop back into place like a spring. “Just a crappy afternoon. What are you doing?”
“Headed to your place. I want to see you. We need to talk.”
“Talk?”
“Yes.”
“About?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there.” And then I’d show her. “Where are you?”
“Um. I’m at Beaux’s. I can meet you…”
“No.” I wanted her in whatever bed she slept in for once. I wanted her to wake up knowing she’d never get the memory of me washed
out of her sheets. Like I gave a shit if Beaux heard me. “I’ll be there in thirty.”
“Um, maybe we can—”
“Thirty minutes, Shannon. Be ready for me.”
I hung up before she could reply, but not before I caught the quick intake of her breath.
So fucking responsive. So beautiful.
Soon she was going to be all mine, because I had two choices: get rid of her before the season started so I could focus on only the game, or go all in so we could stop this ridiculous bullshit uncertainty between us.
And only one choice was acceptable.
I hopped off the bench, tossing the ice pack to the table.
“Hey,” the trainer, Alan, called after me.
“Ice it, twenty on, ten off. I got it.” I raised my hand as I headed out the door, listening to him grumble about how we didn’t know shit.
I walked carefully, my ankle tender and twisted but not sore enough that I couldn’t put weight on it.
The fact that I was injured, mildly, only gave me ideas on how Shannon could take care of me later. With her hands, her mouth, her thighs clenched around my hips as she rode me, taking us both over the edge.
“Hey.” Beaux slapped my shoulder, and his voice along with his touch was just the bucket of ice I needed to drown my erection. A hard-on in athletic shorts was too obvious. “We’re partying tonight, heading out. You coming, old man?”
I couldn’t help myself. “I’ll be coming. But not with you.”
The kid’s skin went green and he covered his eyes. “Jesus. Fuck. Don’t say that shit to me. I’m fucking serious. I don’t need that image—” He scrubbed his face and shook his head. “Seriously, you’re an asshole, Powell, you know that?”
I slapped him on the shoulder. “Have fun tonight. We won’t wait up for you.”
“Aw…hell. You’re doing it at my place now? Stay off the furniture.”
I hadn’t planned on being on it. At least not for long. I still wiggled my eyebrows as I pushed past him on my way to my locker.