But there were bits of him here. An old T-shirt thrown over the back of a chair. She ran her hand along the couch. The imprint of his head on a throw pillow. Dirty dishes and a thin notebook on the kitchen counter. That championship game picture that she’d seen in the condo sat on the mantel here now.
“So this is where you live.”
He was quiet for a long moment, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans. This wasn’t the headstrong quarterback she’d known the past few weeks. This Jonas was different. He didn’t need her approval of his home, but sharing it seemed to make him uncomfortable.
“You don’t let people see this place.”
“No, I don’t,” he finally said as he looked around. “This is just for me. And now it’s also for you. For tonight, anyway.”
For as long as you’ll have me. The words echoed in her mind so loudly Brooks thought she might have said them aloud. She hadn’t. If she had said them she had no doubts Jonas would now usher her out the front door. Brooks swallowed. She saw him here, sitting at the table. On the sofa. Getting a drink from the stainless-steel refrigerator. She couldn’t let him lose this place, not because of shoddy reporting. She—
God. She loved him. Brooks closed her eyes. She loved him.
Jonas took her hand and led her up the stairs. A wall of windows opened his bedroom to the Kentucky night, starlight shining over every surface. The sleigh bed looked sumptuous under the striped brown comforter, a discarded tie hung over the knob on the closet door. A comb fought with a lamp, lip balm, more magazines and sunscreen on his dresser top.
She felt honored to have been invited inside his secret lair, and felt a little silly just calling it a lair. But there it was. The Beast had his secret castle just outside Belle’s village. Jonas Nash had a secret, sweet farmhouse outside Louisville, Kentucky. The difference was that the Beast was imprisoned in his castle and Jonas wanted the solace of his farm.
Brooks ran her hand over his cheek. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she said and kissed his rough cheek.
She really, really wanted to feel that comforter against her back. To have Jonas over her once more.
Brooks slipped out of her shoes and reached to the side to pull down the zipper on her dress, the rasp of the zipper sounding loud in the room. She heard Jonas’s intake of breath and smiled. Heard another zipper—his—and the smile grew.
She began pulling the two sides of fabric apart, but Jonas’s hand stopped her. Turned her around to look at him. He reached around, his warm palm doing tortuous things to her ribcage as he walked his fingers around to her spine, loosening the dress as he drew her closer. Closer. With his free hand, he tucked his index finger beneath the yellow silk above her breast and tugged lightly. The fabric slipped down, sliding past her shivering tummy and over her hips, leaving her barefoot and wearing only a thin pair of lacy, yellow panties and matching bra.
Her breasts were heavy, begging for a touch from this man she really, truly, should not want. Every sensible voice in her head screamed at her to run. She couldn’t. Not just because she loved Kentucky and football.
Because she loved him. And that, right there, was the scrolling, scoreboard sign that should push her back out of his bedroom, down the stairs and out of this house that was so like the house she’d had in mind when she was a girl dreaming about what life would be like when she was a grown-up. She couldn’t make her feet leave his bedroom.
He stared at her, traced a finger over her jaw and down her neck. Tickled along her collarbone. He’d tossed his shirt and loafers on the floor at some point but his jeans still rode low on his hips. Brooks reached out, mimicking him. Her fingers followed the line of his abdomen down, down, down until her skin met thick denim.
Raising her eyes to his she pushed down, gently. Jonas smiled. And then his mouth was against hers, his hands everywhere. On her shoulders, pressing her against the smooth comforter. Under the small of her back as he lifted her onto the bed. Teasing her breasts until she couldn’t take a steady breath. Brooks was left to hold on to Jonas for balance, his shoulders strong and sinewy, his back and abs rippling with muscles that quivered when she touched.
He tasted like beer, a taste she’d never liked until this night as he nibbled his way over her mouth and across her jaw to find a sensitive spot just below her ear. He played with that area, nipping with his teeth, soothing with his tongue, for what felt like hours as Brooks learned the feel of every muscle on his torso.
His hands slipped down her sides, his thumbs catching the lace at her hips and pulling the fabric down, down as he kissed his way over her tummy and down her legs to her ankles. Brooks bunched her hands in the cool, brown fabric as Jonas began working his way back up her legs. He paused at the back of her knee, again at her hip, his fingers flirting with her core but never fully touching her.
Brooks wanted to scream. She wanted so much more than he was giving her. She wanted everything and she was going to take it.
Reaching around him, she pushed his jeans over his hips, surprised to find nothing between denim and skin. Surprised and turned on a little bit more. She couldn’t push far enough, not with his body pressing hers into the soft mattress.
“Jonas, a little help.”
Jonas rose up on his elbows, looking into her eyes for a long moment as his finger drew circles over her thigh. Closer. Closer. Closer to her center but still not touching.
“Jonas.” His name was a sigh on her indrawn breath. “Please.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re doing just fine.”
“Don’t tease me. I want...”
“You want?”
His index finger flirted a little closer to her center.
“More. I want more.” He grinned. Brooks tried to put steel in her voice. “And these damned jeans are in the way of more.” She failed. Miserably. Instead of being in charge she sounded needy, wanting. Which was exactly what she was at this moment. Jonas didn’t need to know that, though.
The muscles in her thighs quivered as he continued the sensual onslaught, and she drew in a shallow breath. She couldn’t look away from him. His finger tickled over her hip bone and her stomach joined the quivering mass of muscles her body had become. Jonas dipped his tongue into her belly button, swirled around and then continued its trek up, up, up until it closed over her nipple. His tongue flicked and kneaded her nipple until it puckered, as hard as a stone.
He withdrew his mouth and Brooks barely held in the whimper.
“You’re the one who mentioned more,” he said, laughter filling his voice as he left her alone in the bed long enough to shuck his jeans and draw on a condom. Then he was back, his hands circling every erogenous zone in her body like a football spiraling through the air.
She couldn’t think, could only hold on as he doubled his efforts at sensual torture. His mouth closed over her nipple once more and then, a second later, his fingers delved into her wet heat.
It was more than Brooks could have imagined. She forgot to breathe, could only feel as he pushed inside her only to pull out once again. His thumb found the sensitive bud and flicked against it, in rhythm with his mouth over her breast, sending Brooks over. The orgasm rocked over her, wave after wave of pleasure as she dug her hands into Jonas’s shoulders.
But he didn’t stop. A moment later, Jonas took her mouth with his, his heady taste starting her journey all over again. He pushed against her entrance, hard and ready, and then he was inside her, filling her. Making her want even more.
Jonas raised his head once more, looking deeply into her eyes, not saying a word as he pulled out and then plunged back inside. The deep brown of his eyes, the wanting she saw there, captivated her and she couldn’t look away. Slowly, oh so slowly, he pulled out once more, pausing for a moment at her entrance before slowly sliding back into her depths.
The rhythm caught and hel
d them both, sped a little and then they were racing toward the starlight.
Together.
* * *
JONAS LAY ON the big bed, arms around Brooks’s waist, trying not to think about taking her back to the stadium to pick up her car. He had to let her go, at least for now. Until he was certain she wouldn’t be hurt by his actions. She sighed in her sleep and snuggled against him. He placed a soft kiss on her shoulder.
It didn’t have to be a complete goodbye. Assuming she didn’t lose her job because of the scoop, she would still cover the Kentuckians. He would still be able to see her. Talk to her. They just had to keep their personal distance until this all blew over. He traced his fingers over the words he’d finally noticed tattooed in small letters on her ribcage.
Run like a girl, play like a girl, fight like a girl, win like a girl.
The mantra fit her. She was a woman in football, and there were all too few of them.
“If you keep touching me like that, I’m not responsible for my actions,” she said, her voice husky with sleep and arousal.
“I was just memorizing your tattoo. It suits you.”
She turned in his arms, pressing her breasts to his chest. “Tattoos should always fit the person wearing them. Yours suit you.” Her hands went to his shoulders and he felt her tracing the football and number there. “I get the science and football marriage, but why the number two? Your playing number has always been six.”
“To remind me where I came from,” he said after a long moment.
Brooks craned her neck to look at him, and even though he was confident she couldn’t see his expression in the dark, he schooled his features into a mask.
“What does the number two have to do with Texas?”
“Not literally. I was second as a kid, always behind whatever book my mother was writing or whatever experiment she was conducting. When everyone assumed I’d be taken first in the draft, I was taken second, behind an offensive linebacker with toe problems.”
“Those things don’t make you second. I’m sure your mother didn’t mean to put her work ahead of you. Single parents get wrapped up in things. And being chosen second in a draft class of more than two hundred isn’t so bad.”
“There’s another two for you. I’m not really hung up on where I was drafted, it was just a reminder, like I said. Leading up to the draft everyone expected I’d go first. My team were national champions, I had the pedigree. Someone else was seen as more desirable.” He told himself to stop there, but didn’t. He didn’t want to have secrets from Brooks, even if they were putting their relationship on hold. “And the neglect was intentional, although she wouldn’t see it that way. My mother has a gift, a rare mind. She sees it as her duty to devote herself to science. When she realized I would never join her team, I was a liability.” Brooks’s hands stilled on his back. “She made certain I was looked after. That I had supervision, but she had too much to accomplish to waste her time on someone who could never measure up. She took a position in Switzerland, then another in California, then back to Switzerland. She’s been there for almost fifteen years.”
“But you were able to see the world—”
Jonas shook his head. “I was in Texas with a series of live-in housekeepers, and a couple of distant relatives who would stop in occassionally.”
Brooks was quiet. Too quiet. Her hands squeezed against his shoulder. “Your mother is a fool.”
“No. She’s brilliant—”
“Only a fool would abandon her child because he didn’t like science.”
“She didn’t leave me to fend for myself on the streets. I had a home, food, spending money.”
“A child deserves more than a roof over his head and three meals a day.”
Maybe, but Jonas let that go. He’d let Beverly go a long time ago, and because he let go he had more than ten years of football. A handful of teammates like Ramos, a coach like Earl Highland. He might not have had the perfect childhood, but he would have a good life.
And he had Brooks Smith in his bed for a few more hours. He turned onto his back and put one arm above his head. Brooks snuggled back into his side, twining a leg with his. She ran her fingers gently over this chest.
“I might not have found what I was meant to do if she’d been a more traditional mother. Earl might have gone back to coaching small college teams, and he’s now a coach in the pros. My school might not have won that National Championship, and the attention and money it brought the school has funded a lot of amazing projects, including a couple of well-building projects in Third World countries. It’s not all bad.”
“You made football your family.”
Jonas had never thought of it that way. He’d found something he was good at, and worked at it until he excelled. He liked the way she put it, though. Football was his family. Football. Guys like Earl and Ramos. Kids like Mark.
“I suppose I did.” He twisted his hand in her hair. “I never told anyone about that.”
“I’m glad you told me,” she said.
“Me, too.” His eyes drifted closed and he felt her breathing deepen. A small snore escaped her lips, and Jonas pulled a light sheet over them. “Brooks?” No answer. The room was still. Her arm went limp against his chest and another little snore sounded. “I’m glad I told you about my past. I’m sorry I screwed up our present, but I’m going to do everything I can to make sure we have a future.”
Her only answer was another little snore. Jonas smiled in the darkness. He had a beautiful woman in his arms, and she snored. She ate like a lumberjack. She sang really loudly and off-key in his truck. She’d had the perfect family growing up, at least from what he could tell, and her parents had instilled generosity and work ethic. She fought for the things she wanted with grace and dignity. Like a girl.
“I love you,” he whispered into the night, and then let his eyes drift shut. Things would change tomorrow, at least for a little while, but he was glad they had taken the night.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“WE AREN’T SURE what to think about this, Miss Smith,” Gary Jacobs, the director of sports programming for the network and her boss, said. His voice seemed to echo around the interior of her car, which Brooks knew was impossible. Still, she double-checked the speaker phone volume. Normal. “We aren’t saying you should report false information, but we should have at least been aware of a story like this brewing in the Kentuckians’ camp.”
Brooks gripped the steering wheel and glanced in her rearview mirror. Jonas had pulled his truck back onto the highway, leaving her alone in the stadium parking lot. It was just after eight and hers was the only car in the lot because the team offices were now closed until a few days before training camp opened. Together they’d watched the morning news program from the other affiliate; they didn’t run the story on Jonas, but she knew it was only a matter of time.
“What I’m saying is that everyone already knew about the injury, it was reported on for weeks during the last season. I spoke to both Jonas Nash and Earl Highland about the injury—” which wasn’t technically a lie; she talked, they dodged “—and there was nothing new to report. I can tell you he was given the go-ahead to begin throwing earlier this week, and that his final checkup is set for the week before training camp opens. They expect to get the all-clear. I can also tell you I have a sit-down scheduled with him later this morning and that interview will be ready for the noon shows.”
“This is all information we could have reported yesterday or the day before that.”
“I’ve only known about the final doctor’s visit since yesterday. Even if I’d known about it a week ago, though, I wouldn’t have reported on it. It’s not a story at this point. He had an injury. He had surgery and is now rehabbing. All of that is old news.” Brooks kept her voice calm, logical. Because what she was saying was true, but that wasn’t all of it. She
could have pushed Earl or Jonas, could have pressed Trisha, for that matter. She wasn’t Jonas’s doctor, but she knew about the kind of injury he’d had. Something had held her back, and now she was certain that something was her feelings for Jonas. The network didn’t need to know that; she’d followed the journalistic tenets she’d learned in college. “The report last night was yellow journalism at best. The affiliate is using inflammatory language to create hype and drama. They’re looking for a spike in summer ratings.”
Gary Jacobs sighed over the phone line. “Look, I’m not firing you from the position, but I will tell you the other executives aren’t happy with how this has played out. Radio has the story; a couple of other networks have put the footage from last night with the original injury video.”
“I’ve seen a couple of the reports.” The local affiliate hadn’t run another story since last night, but the other national networks had picked it up. She’d squeezed Jonas’s hand sympathetically while they watched the national reports over breakfast. He merely shrugged as if he hadn’t spent the past few months trying not to have this exact report run on national television.
“Then you know we’re behind on this. We need to catch up and we need the catch-up to take over the trending spots on social media.”
“Then let me do my job. I’ve built a rapport with the team. Last night I interviewed Coach Highland about not only Jonas Nash but also Parker Jamieson. I’ll meet with Jonas in another hour, and can still have that package to you by the noon shows.” She held tightly to the phone as if it might anchor her to her job.
“See that you do. And, Miss Smith?” he asked.
“Yes?”
“Ask the hard questions.” The phone line went dead and Brooks breathed a sigh of relief. One hurdle crossed, and she still had a job. Now to get the spotlight off Jonas so he could finish the rehabilitation in peace.
She started the car, and a few minutes later pulled to a stop in the parking lot of Kent’s apartment building. Brooks climbed the exterior stair, found his door and knocked.
Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set Page 95