Hard to Hold

by K. Bromberg

  I look over to him where he stands, sweats on, shirt off, and welcome the distraction as my eyes were about to go cross-eyed from all the fine print.

  But now I’m definitely alert at the sight of him and the visceral punch he gives me each and every time. It’s almost as if my body knows how good he is and is trying to shock my head into forgetting.

  “That is kind of what your job description is, though.” He levels me with a glare that makes me chuckle. “Poor baby. Rough day at the office, dear?”

  He presses his fingers to his eyes before running a hand through his hair. “When do the questions ever fucking end?” he asks and sighs. “What about Esme, Rush? Are you going to be the chink in the Liverpool armor, Rush? Hey, Rush, who do you think the team is going to keep—you or Seth? The transfer window will be narrowing soon so who do you think, Rush? Such bollocks,” he says as he moves toward me and begins to gather up all the papers on the couch beside me.

  “Hey, what are you—” And before I can finish what I’m saying, he plops down, head on my lap—where I’ve just pushed my laptop out of the way—and his feet are extended over the armrest. “Rush!”

  I look down to find him looking up at me with that sheepish smile and those thick lashes framing his pale, unapologetic eyes.

  “Excuse me?” I ask in mock exasperation, which I’ve given up feeling when it comes to him.

  “I just needed to be with someone nice who doesn’t ask me a million questions,” he says in a sleepy voice, closing his eyes as he snuggles in and gets comfortable. “Someone who isn’t judging or questioning or wondering while I stand there with a smile plastered to my face, pretending it doesn’t affect me, since I’m the face of a whole bloody league.”

  It’s the first trace of Rush’s frustration and I’m glad to see it. A part of me wonders if it stems from what I said to him at the event the other night. The function where I spoke my mind when I swore I wouldn’t. I couldn’t help myself. Not after Finn and his bullshit. Besides, anyone who’s not affected in some way or another by the event he left behind needs to have an emotional overhaul.

  And of course, he just pigeonholed me with that whole speech. Because while we’ve been skirting around each other over the past week with Finn here in LA, I can’t help but remember the look on Rush’s face when I told him I didn’t think he slept with Esme. The widening of his eyes. His lips opening in shock.

  The question is what or who he’s covering for and why.

  “They’re naturally curious, you know. Everyone is.” I tread cautiously, and when he doesn’t open his eyes or respond, I continue. “You haven’t given a single statement about the matter. To anyone. If you did, it might clear things up for some people.”

  “I told you, the team is under a gagging order,” he murmurs.

  “And I told you, there are ways to work around that,” I say, “but the fact that you carry on like business as usual when you left a wake of trouble behind you has people curious.” And probably, very disappointed. The comments on his post from his massive following on social media reflect just that.

  “Next topic, please.”

  I don’t hide my frustrated sigh as I study his face. The way his lashes fan over his cheeks and the dark stubble from not shaving this morning. I so want to lean over and kiss those lips. There’s an ache, a need, that seeing him, having him touch me causes. It hasn’t left since that first time he kissed me.

  Change gears, Lennox.

  Save your sanity.

  I reach out and run a hand through his hair. “I was working here, you know.”

  “I know, but you’re also working with me, and since I seem to be getting the short end of the stick on your attention as of late, I figured I’d insert myself right where you can’t ignore me anymore.” He opens his eyes to meet mine.

  “I’ve hardly been ignoring you.”

  “Then why am I the only one lying horizontal right now?” His grin widens, which is a welcome sight after the worry etched in the lines of his face moments ago.

  But as much as it’s a welcome sight, I emit a sigh. It’s all I can do. The man most definitely wins an A for effort and being relentless over the past week.

  Between walking around in those damn LFC sweats that ride low on his hips to making sure to occupy every single space of the house I’m in, he’s definitely determined to wear me down until I cave.

  If I’m on the phone pacing with a client, he plops down, props his feet up right in my path as if I’m not there, and starts scrolling on his phone.

  If I’m working at the dining room table on the computer, he turns a game on, any game, and commentates to drive me crazy.

  If I’m in the kitchen, he hops up on the island right where I’m preparing food, taking samples of whatever I’m preparing.

  I’ve held out, I’m proud that I have, but the more he’s around and the less I’m around the outside influences in my life that were making me feel inadequate, the more I’m beginning to agree with him that it’s no one’s business who I sleep with.

  “You have to stop doing this,” I scold.

  “Doing what?”

  “Thinking my time is your time.”

  “But isn’t it your job to make me happy? So essentially your time is my time.” His grin is back and when I avert my eyes, I’m looking at his chest. The intricate tattoos cover his left shoulder and down to his wrist. They’re a mosaic of images and words, the most substantial one a compass of sorts that all the rest revolve around, and I study each one while he watches me do so.

  “Do you have something against wearing shirts?” I murmur.

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, I do. It’s a shame to wear them when the weather is as great as it is here. You should try it sometime.”

  “We’re not as free here in the States when it comes to women going topless.”

  “You should be. I won’t tell anyone if you take it off if you don’t tell.”

  “Funny.”

  “Tell me something, Lennox.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why are you here? There’s more to it than just the MLS. I’ve heard you on the phone with your sisters and dad. You miss them.”

  My smile is soft as a swell of emotion hits me, and how right he is. “I do.”

  “Care to expand?”

  “Only if you care to?”

  Our eyes hold for a beat, a silent challenge highlighted with an undertone of sexual tension that neither of us can deny. His heartbeat pounds under my hand I have resting atop his chest and in this moment, I know my defenses are all but nonexistent.

  “You’re upset.”

  “Sometimes family does that to you even when it’s unintentional.”

  “What happ—”

  I press my finger to his lips moments before shifting so my lips can replace it. He stills for a beat when our lips meet, and as I use my tongue to coax his mouth to part.

  There’s hesitation.

  “What are we doing here, Nox?” he murmurs against my lips.

  A tenderness we’ve yet to experience, but that is so very welcome, especially when he uses his nickname I only hear when we’re alone.

  “I’m kissing you.” I slip my tongue between his lips again.

  “I thought there were rules.”

  Another touch of lips. A soft groan when I gently tug on his lips before I lean back to answer him.

  “There are.”

  “You’re breaking them.”

  His eyes darken as we stare at each other, our breaths feathering one another.

  “I’m taking lessons from you.”

  And this time when I kiss him, I don’t stop. I revel in the moment. In him. In needing this human connection with a man I know will make me feel good. A man who won’t be able to hurt me.

  We both know this will go nowhere.

  We both have lives to return to in a matter of weeks. So despite the warnings I’ve given, the promises I’ve made to myself, I act on that ache deep within—both physical
ly and emotionally—to be connected with someone when I feel so very untethered from everything else.

  He breaks from the kiss and when he studies me, I wonder what he sees. The inadequate agent trying to do right by her family or the hardheaded agent who’s trying to make a place for herself in a world where nothing is as it seems? Or the woman who’s trying to do both while carving a little piece of life for herself in the midst of it?

  “You haven’t asked to be my agent,” he whispers.

  “Presently, I have more things on my mind than who’s negotiating your contracts.”

  “Like?”

  “Like kissing you.” I lean down and tease his lips.

  “Oh,” he says, and I smother the sound with my kiss.

  His hand reaches up to the back of my neck to pull me closer, yet he lets me take the lead on this. My action creates his reaction. My sigh is only accented by his soft groan.

  And so we kiss. Our tongues meet and flutter over one another’s. Our hands roam gently over one another despite our awkward positioning.

  But there’s an intimacy to the kiss, a longing sated. The hunger is still there between us, the dire lust, but the urgency we’ve typically exhibited is on hold while we connect in the simplest of ways.

  My body heats from his touch. My mind goes blank, save for allowing me to appreciate and savor this rare moment of tenderness from a man who’s all about action and distraction.

  The best part about it all is that he makes no move to take more. He allows me to take what I want and not hurry whatever this is along.

  Sure we’ve had sex before, but there’s something about this moment, about each meeting of our lips and sigh of contentment that fills some part of me I wasn’t sure was missing or needed until now.

  I really like kissing this man.

  The front door slams and while I jolt back into a seated position, Rush stays right where he is, groans dramatically, his dick flying full mast against his sweats.

  “Seriously, Johnny?” he says as keys jingle and footsteps fall on the floor. “Can’t a man snog a woman and not be interrupted by the other man who owns the damn house he’s letting them stay in?”

  I laugh, as I scoot out from my seat so that Rush’s head falls to the cushion, while gathering my contracts and papers that had fallen during our kissing.

  “When I agreed to the two of you staying here, I didn’t think I was going to have to sterilize the whole house from your infectious lusting,” he says as he strolls into the family room. “Wow. A football game on the telly and a hard-on in your pants. Let’s hope that hard-on was for you, Lenn, and not the game.”

  I hold up my middle finger to Johnny, conscious that for the first time in my life, I’m embarrassed about getting caught in this position. Considering the fact that Johnny and I were roommates in college, we’ve both caught each other in compromising situations, but there’s something different about this time.

  Something that unnerves me, and it’s not until I collect my things and am heading up the stairs to Rush and Johnny’s banter in the background that I realize what it was.

  Rush made me feel. In the moment, our kissing was incredible, but now that I’ve been able to step back, I realize it was too tender and too reverent. I usually shy away from anything that makes me feel like that.

  Pleasure and desire and lust are what I prefer. It’s what I bury my heart beneath. It’s what I swear I want, but for some reason I’ve let Rush dig down to.

  Shit.

  Well, lucky for me there was Johnny.

  Lucky for me I was saved by the bell.

  RUSH

  THE BREEZE IS COOLER TONIGHT, as it whispers up the canyon and through the trees surrounding the house.

  On any given night the view is one for the ages, but tonight it’s even better. Lennox is standing at the edge of the patio, hands braced against the railing, face held up to the sky.

  And almost as if she’s tempting every part of my willpower—that was tested with that snogging session earlier—she’s in an all-white bikini with a sexy chain wrapped around her waist that’s glinting off the moonlight. Her hair is wet, and water runs down every inch of her body.

  I take in the curve of her arse, the length of her legs, how you can all but see her skin beneath the wet fabric . . . and have to stifle a groan by the sauna that I just stepped out of.

  Who is this woman and why is she owning way too many of my thoughts? It’s more than her body. That, in and of itself, is devastating, but add in her no-nonsense attitude on the phone when she’s on business calls, and there’s no denying sexy is an understatement when it comes to Lennox.

  But, what am I going to do about it?

  I understand her side of things—why she’s saying no and the corner she’s backed into on this. And I also have to be aware of the fact that maybe I do want her as my agent. Someone who believes me and tells me straight versus looking at me as a damn paycheck is a fucking rarity.

  My fingers itch to touch her. To claim her. To have her.

  And yet, I don’t keep women around long, I never have. So what does that mean when you’ve shagged and discarded a woman who you might want to be your agent? How the fuck does that work?

  “I know you’re standing there, Rush,” she says in that husky rasp of hers before looking over her shoulder to where I’m standing. “Are you enjoying the view?”

  “It’s a beautiful night,” I murmur as I walk out from behind the shadows. “The stars. The view. The—”

  “Me,” she says and turns to face me.

  I whistle. The woman is more than enough to bring any man to his knees. I take in the whole of her. The intensity of her eyes. The delicate curve of her shoulder. That chain that rests right beneath her belly button.

  And I was right. That wet, white swimsuit clings to her skin so that even by the pool light, I can see the dark pink of her nipples through the fabric.

  She’s bathed in complete confidence—that only makes her sexier—and owns everything about me in the moment.

  “Yes. You, Nox,” I say as she crosses the distance and steps into my personal space. Without hesitation, I reach out and run a hand down the side of her abdomen before twisting my fingers in that damn chain and tugging her gently into the shadows with me. “You are a sight for sore eyes.”

  Her breath hitches, and there’s something different about her now. Earlier she was soft and . . . seemed vulnerable for lack of a better term, but right now, she’s a straight-up siren. Her eyes are telling me the same thing her body is, and I cannot complain about them finally aligning.

  I run the backs of my fingers down her cheek, as our gazes lock in the moonlight. “We’ve been skirting around whatever this is, Lennox, for way too long.”

  “Around what?” she asks in a rush of breath.

  “This.” I rub my thumb back and forth over her bottom lip. “Us.”

  She’s so damn close. Her lips. That body.

  “You mean our business partnership?” She lifts a lone brow and smiles.

  “Nothing about us says business. Not our first meeting. Not our first fuck. And definitely not that kiss earlier.”

  I think I catch a wince when I mention kissing. Interesting. The iron princess let down her guard earlier, let me see a different side of her, and now it’s firmly back in place.

  Can’t say I mind one bit though.

  This—the self-confidence, the forwardness—isn’t a hardship to be on the other end of.

  “Then what exactly does this,” she says, and mimics the same motion I made between the two of us, “mean?”

  “That you want me just as much as I want you.”

  “That’s a little presumptuous, don’t you think?” she asks while her fingertip trails a path along the midline of my chest.

  My muscles flex in reaction. My dick grows hard. And when she keeps going south, I grab her wrist and hold it still.

  She wants to play this game? Tease and tempt?

  I’m more than w
illing.

  “You and I both know that’s a lie,” I say in a whisper. As I kiss the inside of the wrist I’m holding, my chuckle carries through the night. “You know as well as I do that you want me again, Lennox. That you see me, that you watch me, and when you do, your body aches and your pussy grows wet, and all you can think about is how I taste. How I feel.” I lean in and tug on her earlobe gently, her back arching when I do. “Don’t worry, the feeling is mutual.” I lean back, and those eyes of hers flutter open to meet mine. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “You’re trouble, you know that?” she says, but her eyes dart to my lips and then back up.

  “You’re right. I am. And drama follows me as part of the package, but we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about pleasure. About release. About the confidence to know what you want and to take it without caring that you do.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is.” A smile toys at the corner of my mouth.

  “Hey Rush?” A lick of her own lips.

  “Hmm?”

  “I thought you were the type of man who takes what he wants.”

  Fuck. This woman. This moment. Her dare.

  “I am. I do. But, darling, for a woman who keeps telling me no, it’s only fair that I wait for you to say yes.”

  Lennox leans in, the heat of her breath hits my ear, and all the blood that isn’t already pooling to my dick, heads there. “Yes.” It’s one murmured word, but it also heralds the sound of my control snapping.

  I groan. It’s all I can do, as I pull on her wrist so she steps inside the sauna at my back.

  The room is dimly lit with a rope light, which goes around the underside of the benches that span every wall as well as the top where the wall meets the ceiling. The benches are made of hemlock and the front wall is made of glass that you can see out from the inside but that no one can see in.

  “Rush, what—”

  “Turn around and face the wall, Lennox,” I order, just as she’s about to face me. I know she likes to be in control, so this is either going to unnerve her or turn her on—me taking completely over. “Brace your hands on the back of the wall.”