by Avery Flynn
“Please. The ship’s captain was nice enough to move me into an open cabin and send me the champagne to make up for the whole groupie-security-breach thing.” He walked to the sliding glass doors and gestured toward the balcony beyond. The sound of the waves lapping lazily against the ship filtered through the open doors, along with the salt-air scent that would forever remind her of this trip. “Don’t make me drink it by myself. I might fall off the balcony. That would ruin your chances of getting that promotion. Really, I’m doing you a favor.”
She threw back her head and laughed. “You’re so full of shit.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders and raised the champagne glass in a toast. “But I’m great on my feet, as proven by the charade game playing.”
“Who are you kidding?” Against her better judgment, she joined him on the cusp of the balcony and pretended to take in the full moon’s reflection on the midnight-blue water, but all she could concentrate on was the frisson of awareness that unsettled her whenever she was within three feet of him. “The fan team killed us.”
He adjusted his stance so his large biceps brushed against her shoulder and his thigh was within millimeters of touching her. Not that it made a difference. His nearness was as tangible as a touch.
“Is it my fault you didn’t get ‘lingerie model’ from my runway strut?” he asked.
“That’s what that was? I thought you were demonstrating having,” she coughed, “something up your butt.”
“If this is how the conversation is going to go, I need a drink.” He held out the champagne glass to her again and his deep voice lost its light teasing tone. “Stay. Please.”
He wasn’t asking as the egomaniacal football player she’d dealt with up until they’d bonded over dirty charades. He wasn’t asking as the dude playing in Vegas by that town’s rules who’d rocked her world and wrung her out with pleasure.
He’d made her laugh at charades, kept smiling through the hours of signing for fans and listened to each Thunder Dome Crew super fan’s story of what his stats would be if he hadn’t broken his ankle. She didn’t know this guy in front of her, but she wanted to.
Weren’t those the famous last words of every girl who ever thought she saw something in a man that no one else did, some secret side he revealed only for her? Logically she knew all that, but it didn’t matter.
She accepted the champagne, their fingers brushing and sending sparks across her skin. “One drink.”
“Whatever you say.” Colt led the way out onto the balcony, taking the lounge chair farthest from the door.
Settling in on the chair beside him, Angie took a sip of effervescent courage. “If this gets weird, I’m out of here.”
“Sit, look at the stars, forget about the rest of the ship for a while. You’re on a cruise and I bet you haven’t even looked out at the water yet.”
“Now that’s the pot calling the kettle black.” Another sip and the bubbles tickled her nose as she watched the stars sparkle above them, brighter than they ever looked in Miami even on the darkest night.
“Only because you’re such a hard-nosed task master.” He clinked his glass against hers. “If the promotion thing doesn’t work out, you should talk to Coach Carter. He’d love your approach.”
They sat, relaxed in each other’s company, as one glass turned into three and the soothing sound of the ocean washed away the barriers between them. Angie felt them erode with each story about the prank wars during the Thunder training camp and her explanations of the many dating profiles her mother insisted on creating and monitoring for her.
“Sorry I threatened to throw you overboard,” she said.
He cut his eyes at her. “You didn’t.”
“Oops.” She giggled. “I must have said it only in my head.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone threatened to knock some sense into my thick skull,” he said. “My dad was the master of getting just what he wanted using only a look.”
“That’s a good trick. For me it’s my mom. That woman gets an idea in her head and I’m helpless to shake it back out. I guess all mothers are like that though.”
He shook his head, his lips forming a tight, straight line. “Wouldn’t know, my mom disappeared early on in my life.”
“Disappeared?”
“Meth.” Colt stared straight out past the balcony, but there was no way he was seeing the ocean’s gentle waves. Whatever image had grabbed ahold of him was darker than the ocean at its deepest depths.
She reached for him, but he stood from his chair before she could make contact and he began to pace the small balcony, every step rigid with suppressed emotion. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged then downed the rest of his champagne in one gulp. “She’s still out there.” He palmed the empty glass and drew back his arm as if he was about to fling it over the edge, but at the last moment set the flute down on the small table next to her chair. “My pops hears from her every once in a while. Usually when she’s doing the Narconon during her latest stint in jail and is at the apology step.”
Colt stood next to her, a giant block of a man, so hard and yet vulnerable. He didn’t ask for comfort. She doubted he even knew how.
“And after that call?” The question hung in the air between them like a poisoned balloon with a leak. Her heart ached for him. Her mom was a handful, to put it mildly, but at least she was there. She reached up and slipped her fingers between his and tugged him down to sit beside her. “What about your dad?”
“He taught me everything I know.” He lay back on the chaise, somehow angling his muscular frame so there was enough room for both of them to lay beside each other, and wrapped an arm around her, bringing her in tight against him.
Heat radiated between them, but not like in Vegas. That had been mindless passion…attraction…lust…there were a thousand different names for it. This was different. It squeezed her lungs tight, making it hard to breathe because it took up so much space. The desire that always raged between them was there like the tip of an iceberg, but underneath the waterline there was so much more to it, and it scared her out of her mind.
“If it wasn’t for Pops,” he went on, “I wouldn’t be in the league, and without that I wouldn’t be anything but another poor kid living in a doublewide in Nowheresville, Alabama.”
She turned so they were face-to-face on the lounge chair, the position allowing them for once to see eye to eye. “You’re wrong. Even if you were still in the doublewide, you’d still be someone amazing. Circumstances don’t make the man.” She held up her glass. “To your pops.”
“To Pops.” He picked up his glass and clinked her's with his empty one. “And to you, Angie Diaz. I don’t think even Pops could have gotten me out on that stage. We make a good team.”
They did. They could. The possibility was too much to consider. “I need to go.”
“Stay.” He took her glass and placed it with his on the table.
“That’s not a good idea.” Which is exactly why she should be getting up and walking out the door instead of basking in the easy goodness of his fingers resting against the small of her back.
Colt tipped his head closer, resting his forehead against hers. “Why?”
“I know how this story ends.” Her voice shook. “I’ve heard it often enough from the other girls in the Thunder front office.”
He brushed a kiss against her temple. “How does it go?”
Hardening herself against his soft seduction, she gritted her teeth and forced herself to remember Shonda’s and Patrice’s and Mandi’s faces as they’d recounted their stories of heartbreak. They were always the same.
“Girl meets football player. Girl falls for football player. Football player dumps girl. Girl drowns her sorrows in cheap wine and double-fudge ice cream. Entire front office knows and girl becomes fodder for gossip instead of key candidate for promotion.”
Feather-light, he trailed his fingers up the side of her thigh, over her hip and to the small of her wa
ist. The rest of her body disappeared. The only thing she could feel was burning desire he left in his wake.
“And did any of those stories involve me?” His continued his journey up the outside of her arm and over her shoulder.
“No.” God, even forming the single word was too much for her.
“Sounds to me like you’re judging a book by the other ones on the shelf next to it.” He buried his fingers in her thick hair and tipped her face up so she had to look at him.
Want, need and something more darkened his blue eyes with such intensity that she should have turned to ash under his gaze.
“I can rationalize Vegas as an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience. I can’t rationalize a second time.” And she was beginning to doubt she’d survive it.
“You don’t have to rationalize what you want, Angie.” He kissed her, soft and insistent. “You just have to go for it.” Another kiss, this one harder, as if he was at the point of no return. “And you want me just as much as I want you.”
She pushed against his chest lightly until he eased back. The need to see his face right now and gauge the fallout superseded everything else. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“That is something I’d never do.” He picked up her hand off his chest and kissed the center of her palm. “Stay.”
Chapter Six
Draft night hadn’t been as nerve-racking as waiting for Angie’s answer. Uncertainty wasn’t an emotion Colt was used to feeling. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been sure that sheer determination and talent would get him wherever he wanted to go. But with Angie it was different.
He didn’t understand why—didn’t care. All he knew was that she mattered. This moment mattered.
“I’ll stay,” she said. “But you better make it worth my while.”
Now that was a challenge he’d accept without a second thought. “No doubt about it.”
He scooped her up in his arms, stood and rotated her curvy body so she could wrap her legs around his middle. The move brought her right in line with his hard cock and she undulated against him. She felt so good in his arms, the way her ass filled his hands and the press of her full tits against his chest—as though she belonged here like this with him. Her hips twitched, rubbing her hot pussy against him. They were both clothed, but there was no convincing his cock of that.
“Honey, you keep on like that and I’m likely to toss you over my shoulder, rush into the room and throw you in the middle of that big bed.”
“I dare you.” She nipped at the base of his neck, sucking the tender skin into her hot mouth and giving him all sorts of ideas about what else she could be doing with those juicy lips of hers. Without giving her time to react, he shifted his hands from the traffic-stopping mounds of her ass to her waist, lifted her high and flopped her over his shoulder.
“Colt!” She laughed and smacked his ass—hard.
“You better watch it girl or you’ll be getting some of that back.
Her only response was another flat-handed slap to his already stinging ass.
Stopping a few feet shy of the bed, he shrugged her from her place on his shoulder and threw her onto the bed. She landed on her back, her long dark hair spread out like waves against the white bedspread and her luscious tits bouncing from the fall. Delicious. Decadent. Daring. Angie Diaz might just be the death of him tonight but what a way to go.
To keep himself from ripping her pretty red dress off of her mouthwatering body, he took a step back and put his hands on his hips. “That little spanking is going to cost you.”
Batting her eyelashes, she dragged one finger through the deep V of her cleavage. “But I didn’t bring any money with me.”
His cock strained against his zipper at her coy act, doing its damnedest to break free and point the way toward exactly where it wanted to go—straight home to the warmest heaven between her strong thighs. He reached behind his neck and pulled off his Thunder T-shirt, letting it drop to the floor. Her eyes went wide and she sucked in a deep breath that pushed her tits out.
“Looks like I have to find another way for you to pay.”
Taking one of her ankles in each hand, he lifted and spread them so her legs formed a narrow V and pink-painted toes pointed at the ceiling. The skirt of her sundress pooled around her waist, giving him an unfettered and insanity-inducing view of her long brown legs and the scrap of red lace someone had fooled her into thinking was a full pair of panties. The thin straps of her dress had slipped off her shoulders, taking some of the material with it, exposing the tops of her tits while still hiding her large, dark nipples. God, he could come in his pants just from the view alone.
“Whatever happens, don’t let them drop until I tell you to.”
“And what if I do anyway?” she asked, her voice breathy and low.
“Then I’ll stop.” With deliberate slowness, he trailed a finger from the inside of her calf to the middle of her inner thigh. “And you don’t want that.”
“You’re pretty cocky.”
“You know from experience that I am.” He unsnapped the button of his shorts and pushed them down along with his boxer briefs, so that he stood naked before her, pre-come already wetting the tip of his rigid dick. Wrapping his fingers around his thickness, he stroked up and down while staring at the fast-dampening center of her lacy red panties.
Her thighs quivered. He released his cock and kneeled before her, putting his hands on the backs of her thighs so she could rest against him and then spread her legs as wide as they would go. The scent of her arousal teased him, making him harder than he thought possible. “Fuck, you smell good.”
“You should see how I taste.” There was no disguising the hungry desperation in her voice.
His girl needed it. Bad.
“Oh honey, I’m getting to that.” He kissed a path from her knee to the edge of her panties, crossed over her center with his mouth close enough that his breath made a dent in the swath of cloth covering her wet folds, and then followed the opposite trail up her other leg.
Releasing her thighs, he pulled her panties as far as they would go then shredded them in two with the lightest pressure.
“That was mean.” She pouted, still playing the game. “I liked those.”
Time to show her playtime was over.
“Yeah.” He pushed her legs closer together so they rested on his shoulders and slid his hands down their silky-smooth lengths until he held her ass in his hands. Lifting her butt higher as he leaned forward, Colt found himself right where he wanted to be: mouth to pussy level. “I’m a real bastard.”
He’d dragged this whole thing out to torment her, but damn if he wasn’t about to lose his mind if he didn’t taste her, touch her, sink balls deep into her warmth.
The first lick along her passion-swollen lips had her squirming. He tightened his grip on her ass cheeks and she moaned with pleasure. Continuing the blissful torture for them both, he traced her lips—sucking, licking, and worshiping her with his mouth until she was writhing and calling his name. But he wasn’t done. Far from it.
Pulling back from her core, he released her ass, hooked his hands under her legs and spread her wide as he pushed her knees toward her shoulders. The position put her on display for him and he looked long and hard. The top of her dress had shifted down to her waist, the fallen shoulder straps tangled around her upper arms and holding them close to her sides so that her round tits were pushed together. Her dark nipples had tightened into ferocious points that demanded his attention. Soon, he’d make his way north, but first he wanted to feel her break apart against his lips.
He dove back in, relishing her every whimper and plea not to stop as he feasted on her sweetness. Up and down, twirl to the right and a sweep to the left, he tasted all of her, pushing her closer and closer to the edge until her center tightened beneath him. She screamed out his name and her back arched, lifting her lower half off the bed and bucking his mouth from her. In a lust-clouded daze, he watched as her climax roll
ed over her.
This is what he wanted. To drive her beyond any heights she’d ever had with another man. To blast any thoughts of other men from her memory forever.
“If that’s a punishment,” she panted. “I can’t imagine what a reward is like.”
“You don’t have to.” He grabbed a condom from the bedside table and rolled it on before joining her on the bed and lying on his side with his head propped up by his hand. God, she was beautiful with her hair in a wild mess around her and a post-orgasmic flush leaving her glowing. “I wish I could keep you like this forever.”
“But that would make work awkward.” She turned onto her side and kissed him, sucking in his bottom lip as she pressed his shoulder so he fell onto his back. “So you better take advantage of the moment while you can.”
She straddled him, enveloping his cock in her heated center in one slick downward stroke. The sensation of her holding him tight within her core was nearly more than he could take and he clenched his eyes shut.
“There’s no shutting me out now.” She licked his nipple. “Open your eyes.”
He did and something shifted inside him. Angie looked down at him, her long hair tangled around her shoulders and desire hooding her big brown eyes. She bit her bottom lip and her eyelids drooped shut as she moved against him, obviously lost to everything except for the here and now. The soft glow of the bedside lamp emphasized the ebb and flow of her curves, the ones he could—wanted to—spend a lifetime exploring.
“I want to watch you come again.” The sheer ecstasy that had come over her had left him breathless and aching to make her go that high again.
“You’re very demanding.” She leaned forward so that her breasts hung over his mouth, swinging with every swirl of her hips.
The message was clear and he was more than willing to comply. He sucked a brown nipple into his mouth, grazing the sensitive peak with his teeth.
“Do that again,” she pleaded
He did—harder—relishing how she shivered under his touch.
She increased the speed of her hips, tilting so that her clit rubbed against his pubic bone. “I’m going to come.”