“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.
One of her hands dove into his hair, the other clutched him close around the shoulders, her breasts tight against his chest. He skimmed a hand over her ass, cupping a cheek and pressing her against his erection.
He lifted her off the step, and she circled her legs around his hips. While he climbed, she scattered kisses over his face and pulled at his shirt. He wanted to take things slow, but the pulse of his blood quickened his body, loosening the grasp on his self-control.
The diffused light from her lamp led him into her bedroom. He laid her on the bed, bracing his elbows on either side of head. Her hair spilled over the comforter like an ink stain, her lips curved in welcome, her eyes blazing.
“This is about you and me and nothing else, right?” she asked tentatively.
“Damn straight.”
Her legs clamped his hips even tighter, and he rocked his erection between her legs. She grabbed his biceps, her fingernails biting into his muscle. Her back arched and her neck bowed. It had been years since he’d chased pleasure, and now twice with Lilliana, the compulsion to bury himself inside of her was strong and undeniable. He canted his hips back, ready to rip his jeans down and her panties aside.
Her smile was uncertain and shy. Nothing like the woman who had kissed her way over his tattoos. The feelings tangling in his chest warred, aggression and tenderness, the need to claim and protect, conquer and surrender.
This would not be a quick fuck. She needed to know bone deep how gorgeous and sexy and sweet he found her. Searching for a measure of control, he nuzzled his face into her hair, laying kisses along the delicate cup of her ear. The faint flowery scent of her shampoo mixed with the smell of paints and turpentine.
Everything about the moment felt unique. Different. New. A strange premonition halted the grind of his erection against her core. His life teetered on a precipice of change. He had spent the last years comfortable but far from happy. Was change such a terrible thing?
Memories of broken trust and betrayals and abandonment hammered at him. The warm darkness of her eyes smothered his worries, and he leaned down to take her lips in a slow, mind-numbing kiss.
Chapter 11
The intensity of his gaze stilled her, until his features blurred and her eyes closed at the touch of his lips. Their kiss was unrushed and exploratory. She slipped her tongue past his lips, seeking and rubbing. Passion and need bled into the moment like watercolors. She pulled his long-sleeved T-shirt up his torso, and he broke away long enough to rip it over his head and toss it aside.
Her breath caught. She traced her hands over his torso—one side beautifully inked, the other beautifully unblemished, both beautifully muscled. He skimmed a hand under her tank top, taking the cloth with him until it was bunched under her breasts, his fingertips caressing the undersides.
Although turnabout was certainly fair, she had no bra on, and once her tank was off, she would be wholly exposed. With the light on. Rearing back, he grasped her red top with both hands. Before he could whip it over her head, she scooched backward, reaching for the light. Her voice was airy. “Here, let me—”
He grabbed her hand and pushed it down, trapping her wrist. “Was I not clear last night how much I love your body? You’ve seen me. I want to see you.”
She tested the strength of his hold. Instead of tightening his grip, he let go of her wrist and thread his fingers through hers and squeezed. The sweet gesture undid her. She relaxed in his hold and nodded.
He peeled her shirt up and over her head. His gaze was transfixed like a typical red-blooded American male. She was used to it. When a teasing remark didn’t come immediately, she beat him to the barb. “My personal set of flotation devices. Amiright?”
His gaze shot to her face, his eyes narrowed, squashing her anemic smile into nothing. “You don’t have to do that. Not with me.”
She didn’t need to ask what he meant. With her mouth dry and her throat tight, she swallowed hard.
Instead of going straight for her breasts, he pressed his chest against hers, nuzzling her neck with his nose and lips. She closed her eyes and squirmed under him, his chest hair teasing her nipples. The soft denim of his jeans rasped her thighs, his erection pressed between her legs.
“Lilliana, sweet Lilliana. Kiss me.” Her name rolled off his tongue like honeyed magic, rough and sweet.
When he said her name like that, she would have jumped off the Tuckalachee Bridge if he’d asked. She aimed her mouth toward his but hit his jaw. The stubble teased her lips as she moved inexorably closer to her ultimate destination. Throughout her search, he stayed still, waiting, but when her lips met his, he groaned and took control. The intensity of the kiss obliterated logical thought.
He pressed her into the mattress with his big body, dominating her. Instead of feeling trapped or intimidated, her arousal grew with every passing second. His lips and tongue continued to seduce her. She couldn’t control her writhing hips or the soft gasps and moans. With every kiss, the bricks of her defenses crumbled. He had too much power over her, physically and emotionally.
She pushed at his chest. At first, he didn’t move. Not until she broke their kiss. With the few inches of freedom, she reached for the lamp and fumbled for the switch. The darkness gave her back a feeling of control.
This time, he didn’t argue, but he’d turned to his back, propped up on pillows. She sat up, one arm over her breasts. Had she ruined the moment?
He shifted and grabbed her hips, rolling her over him and pushing her into a straddle over his stomach. His hands circled her torso between her waist and the curves of her breasts, his fingers caressing her back. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she could make out the swirls of dark ink on his chest and could feel his gaze lick over her breasts like a physical touch. Her nipples tingled and grew painful.
He slid his hands higher, and her back arched, a soft begging sound escaping her throat. She leaned forward, her palms landing on his chest. Did he want her to beg? Was she that desperate?
“Alec, if you don’t touch me, I’m going to—”
With a jerk, he pulled her closer and flicked his tongue across her nipple.
“—die.” She barely recognized the husky moan as hers.
Sensation shot from her breast to between her legs. Her knees went soft. Her elbows trembled and threatened to crumple. Even as the pleasure washed through her, the frustration moved south.
Pressed against his bare stomach, her shorts felt damp. A tinge of embarrassment permeated the edges of her arousal, but when she tried to shift, the hands around her torso firmed and held her in place.
He cupped her breasts as his mouth closed over her nipple, sucking it hard and deep, his fingers plucking and rolling the unattended nipple. Most men viewed her breasts as playthings, not as instruments for her pleasure.
The pressure coiling in her belly reached painlike proportions. He rolled her to her back, but instead of pressing her down with his body, he kissed his way south, pulling her boyish boxer shorts down her hips and tossing them away.
Alec continued his trek until the wet, soft touch of his tongue bucked her hips off the bed. Grabbing her thighs, he held her spread open. She’d never been with a man who acted as if her orgasm was paramount to his.
His tongue erased all of her self-consciousness. She pressed her feet flat on the bed and pushed against his mouth. She tried to mimic his play with her breasts, her pinches only providing an echo of the pleasure he’d provided.
Nonsense words rasped out of her mouth and into the darkness. She begged him to never stop and then to end the torture. In the light of day, her uninhibited response might embarrass her, but in the dark of night, she tugged on his hair, driving him even closer to her core. Finally, yet too soon, she splintered apart, shudders racking her body.
After kissing her inner thigh, he rose over her once more. Riding high on the endorphins and power of her climax, she pulled him in for a kiss, groaning into his mou
th at the taste. She trailed her hands down his chest and fought his belt and zipper. Loosening them, she delved inside his boxer briefs.
The feel of him made her heart stutter once more. He thrust into her hand a few times before shifting to stand at the side of the bed and push his clothes off. He didn’t immediately return to her, but stood, circling his hand around the head of his erection.
She left her legs spread wide. And, instead of throwing an arm over her breasts, she raised her hands over her head and arched her back.
“Do you want me to embarrass myself like a teenager watching his favorite centerfold come to life?” His voice bordered on aggressive drawl, but a hint of humor lightened the tone to almost playful.
“I’m not some picture you can’t touch. I’m waiting and very willing.” She dropped a hand to glide through her slickened core.
He crawled to kneel between her legs. Something crackled. She popped up on her elbows to watch him roll a condom on. No mistakes this time.
“I wanted a turn to explore you,” she said.
“Darlin’, I wouldn’t make it five minutes with your hands on me.” His erection bobbed closer and her hips shifted instinctively to take him.
“What about my mouth?”
He flashed a strained smile. “I’d give myself less than two minutes in your mouth.”
“I like the sound of that.” The last word emerged on a gasp as he entered her. The farther he pushed inside of her, the more intense her pleasure grew.
He knelt between her legs, staring where they joined and for the first time, she wished she’d left the light on. The sensations were overwhelming—the stretch, the friction, the push-pull of his hands on her body. He tightened his grip around her thighs and made the first driving thrust.
His head fell back with a guttural moan. Yet, instead of focusing on himself, he went to work, rubbing her with a singular goal. He thrust again, this time short and stabby. His hips bucked into her, almost as if he couldn’t help it. Between his short thrusts and the frantic rub of his fingers, he pushed her hard. The rush of her orgasm was a release from the pleasure-pain of the steep climb.
She said his name on a moan. As if a signal had been given, he dropped over her, his hands by her shoulders. His pace increased, the push into her body became deeper, harder. Pulses cascaded through her body. Whether it was the build to another orgasm or aftershocks, she didn’t have time to determine.
With one last thrust forward, he fell on top of her, his body shuddering. Her face was pressed into his damp shoulder, and she flicked her tongue against his skin. The salty smoothness made her wiggle, and his hips ground against hers. Lightning shot from between legs to her nipples.
He slipped out of her and fell to his back, his chest heaving. He shifted to grab a tissue and remove the condom, and when he settled back, he pulled her close, her breasts pillowed against his side. She ran fingertips along his chest, circling his nipples, tracing lines of ink and muscle.
He flattened her hand on his chest with his own. His heart pounded so hard she could feel the vibrations. As the crackling energy of their encounter dissipated, the cool air drew goose bumps over her skin. In tandem, they slipped under the covers, resuming their positions.
Was there a better time than after mind-blowing sex to ask personal questions? Most assuredly. Yet the words were out before she could stop them.
“Can we talk?”
* * *
He tensed, his DNA sounding an alarm. “Right now?”
She propped herself up on an elbow, and he shifted to tuck his hands behind his head. “Try to control your enthusiasm, Mr. Football.”
“Are you trying to annoy me?” He had been named Mr. Football in the state of Alabama his senior year of high school, but instead of taking pride, he viewed it as the first creaking step of his downfall.
“Annoyed is better than you clamming up and blanking your face like you’re a robot with no feelings, when I know better.”
“Maybe you see what you want to see, not reality.” Discomfort sharpened his tone, and he squirmed his shoulders a few inches away from her.
Yet instead of going on the defense, she ran fingers over his side. “I want you to tell me about this. Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. Henry David Thoreau. I looked him up. He lived a life of relative solitude, you know. Never married or had kids. Died young. Did you get it before or after you quit football?”
He had been expecting questions about his feelings or their possible future, not about his past. Shadows dappled her face, making it difficult to see her expression. She stroked his chest as if soothing a wild animal, and like a wild animal, escape was tempting.
“After. But quitting makes it sound like I had a choice.”
“All right, then why did you get this tattoo after your career-ending injury?”
He closed his eyes, casting back through the snapshots of his memory. Shame and loneliness and regrets got tangled up together. “It all started well before then. Somewhere between the wonder of playing in front of a hundred thousand screaming fans and getting drafted, I changed. Everything changed. None of it for the better.”
Her hand stilled for a moment, but then stroked again.
“Everyone at Bama treated me like I was special. Girls were all over me, all the time. At first, I loved it. Thought they actually liked me.” He blew out a long sigh. “Eventually, I figured out they only wanted to be with the quarterback, not with me.”
Her nails bit into the skin of his chest. If she ended up hating him, then so be it, but he was done hiding his shit. He pushed up until he leaned against the headboard, and she feathered her hand over the inked quote on his side.
“So I stopped caring about them, stopped wondering if they cared about me. One face blurred into another. I didn’t remember their names, didn’t even want to know them. I told myself I was giving them what they wanted.”
“What did you think they wanted?”
“Something to brag about later. An experience. A memory, I guess. How fucked up is that?”
“I’m not going to lie, that’s pretty effed up.” Her voice was rough and hurt-sounding. Probably in female solidarity with all the girls he’d royally screwed over. “But, I can also understand how it happened. When you get burned too many times you learn how to protect yourself.”
“It wasn’t just the girls. The boosters, the administration, the fans … They act like they own a piece of you. You’re a commodity, not a person.”
“Was it better in Philly?”
“Better? I don’t know. I got sick of sleeping around and started dating a former cheerleader. Her friends became my friends. They were partiers, and I got everyone the VIP treatment. My on-field play was improving with every start. My parents had moved to Philly to help manage my career and money. To the outside world, I was living the life, but…” He shrugged.
“But what?”
“I was only happy on the field, playing the game. It’s what I lived for.” He’d never admitted the truth aloud.
“And your injury took that away.”
The dirty hit had come from behind. The tendons of his knee were no match for two-hundred-eighty pounds of linebacker. The physical agony while the linebacker taunted him over the roar of the crowd ached his knee like phantom pain.
“I knew lying on the field waiting for the transport that I was done.” Flowers had filled his hospital room, but not people. “My so-called friends were always available for a party, but when I needed someone to drive me to physical therapy or the grocery store, no one returned my texts.”
“What about your girlfriend?”
“She waited three weeks after surgery to dump me. Married one of my former teammates within a year.”
“Good grief, on top of losing football … Did she break your heart?”
“It was my trust that was broken, not my heart.”
“What a first-class bitch.”
A beat of silence froze him before a chuck
le popped out. Lilliana’s hair cascaded like a curtain over her shoulder to the white sheets. He wanted to bury his face in the waves, breathe her in. His fingers flexed, but he only clenched them in a fist.
“Don’t feel sorry for me. I deserved it. All of it. I didn’t know what her favorite food or color was, didn’t really know her and she didn’t know me. The breakup was a relief. But I had no idea what to do without football, and my parents…”
“I’ve been wondering.” Her voice lilted into a half-question.
Even beyond the crumbling of his future, his parents’ betrayal made him question everything about his past. “You heard right. They’re somewhere in Jasper.” He knew exactly where they lived, had driven by their place a dozen times. “We haven’t spoken for a while. Years, actually.”
The silence grew thicker. He pushed himself taller on the padded headboard. She sat cross-legged at his hip and pulled the sheet under her arms. He closed his eyes and ran his fingers over the quote under his arm. “After everything shook out, it turned out they had been borrowing—stealing—money from me.”
“Why?” Her voice was as disbelieving and shocked as his had been when he’d directed the same question toward his pale father and weeping mother. Her touch was light but insistent, pulling his hand away from his side and holding it between hers in her lap. The sheet gaped where she was no longer holding it. Before he could become completely distracted by her beautiful curves, he looked to the ceiling.
“They got caught up in the same shit as me. Bought a big house in Philly. New cars. Dad left his construction business to founder. His new business entailed gambling on football games, and I was his unwitting financier. He made some money at the beginning, giving him a sense of confidence, before he lost even more.”
“That’s why you don’t speak. You felt betrayed?”
“Yeah.”
“But, they moved back to Alabama when you did?”
“Yeah.” This time, he drew the word out.
Their betrayal had strengthened his resolve to never depend or trust anyone. Yet, the weight of his guilt had grown a little every day since he’d cut off contact with his parents. Unlike everyone else from his past, his parents were out there, wanting him to reach out. At first, he’d received daily calls, which he ignored, and then daily emails, which he trashed. Now every Monday morning, their email was always waiting.
Melting Into You Page 13