Hot Read: The Originals (Seattle Steelheads Book 5)

by Jami Davenport

  God, that man could kiss, and Estie lost herself in the kiss, pretending his homecoming would be a normal occurrence, not just a temporary aberration from their lonely lives. She closed her eyes and reached out to his very soul, pressing against his strong chest and narrow hips, while their tongues mated and their bodies strained to do the same.

  Brett broke off the kiss first. His eyes lit up with pure joy. She loved being the woman who put that joy there and erased the sadness. He deserved happiness and so much more.

  Grasping her hand, Brett sniffed the air. “Something smells good.”

  “I’m testing my culinary skills.”

  “Smells great to me.” He bent to pet Marilyn’s blond head. She’d been bumping him with her nose the second he’d walked in the door, demanding the center of attention. Risky slinked to Brett’s side and leaned against his leg.

  “They’re happy to see you.” Estie loved how he treated his animals like family.

  “Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Go home.” Bongo jabbered and jumped from perch to perch, flapping his wings and being his usual drama king self.

  “Well, except for him.” Brett chuckled.

  “He’s happy being unhappy.”

  Brett put his arm around her waist, and they strolled into the living room, just like a real couple. Their little band of animals dogged their heels. Estie brought a hand to her mouth and touched her lips, still feeling his presence there deep down to her soul.

  Dinner was a huge success, judging by the third helping Brett ate. He helped her clean up the kitchen and soon they were sitting on the couch making out like two high school kids while several sets of eyes watched them. Brett pushed her down on the couch and was copping a feel when Marilyn pushed her nose in between them. They ignored her.

  Brett slid his hand up her shirt. He pushed up her bra and cupped her breast, gently pinching her nipple. Estie gripped the back of his T-shirt. She craved his touch, needed his special brand of loving like she needed an umbrella on a rainy day.

  “Get some. Get some. Get some.” Bongo made his opinion known.

  Spock sat on the arm of the chair and flicked his tail across Estie’s forehead while Jim batted at her hair falling down the side of the couch, and Risky licked her cheek. Estie tried to block them out as she kissed the hell out of Brett.

  “Bongo wants the pretty lady.” Bongo started singing, adding his own weird twist and nonsensical words. “Bongo loves Bongo. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck the pretty lady.”

  Brett pulled away and shook his head. “This is just plain weird.” His eyes were glazed with lust, his chest heaving, and his mouth moist from her kisses. She stared up at him in a daze and tried to wrap her brain around his words to make sense of them.

  “No shit.”

  “They’re watching. Hell, they’re right in the middle of us.” Brett’s weight moved off her, and he sat up.

  Estie pulled down her shirt and sat up too. “I guess they want a piece of the action.”

  “They’ll never get a piece of this action. Never.” Brett chuckled.

  “Let’s go somewhere private.”

  “Brilliant idea.” Brett scooped her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing. He carried her to the bedroom, slamming the door with his foot before Marilyn and Risky could follow.

  Brett tossed her on the bed, and she bounced a few times. He laughed as he fell onto the mattress beside her. Then they were all over each other like a pair of horny teenagers with clothes flying. Estie dragged her mouth from his and crawled down his hard body, noting a scar here and there, tracing a couple tattoos with her tongue. Brett lay absolutely still, other than his heavy breathing, and gripped the comforter.

  Estie heard a whine at the door followed by a scratch. In the distance, Bongo rattled on, “Bad dog. Bad, bad dog. I hate cats. I hate fucking cats.”

  She shoved them out of her mind. Tonight was about Brett and her, not their furry babies. Pausing, she ran her tongue around one of his nipples, and Brett sucked in a breath through his teeth. A fine sheen of sweat stood out on his chest. Estie smiled to herself. She knew how to push this man’s buttons, and she loved the power, loved the rush of knowing he adored her, loved how his body responded to even her slightest touch.

  Continuing her downward journey, she paused long enough to lick his navel then blow on it.

  “Oh, fuck.” Brett buried his fingers in her hair and groaned like a man in exquisite pain or, more likely, pleasure.

  Estie wasn’t done yet. He’d be putty in her hands before the night was over. She cupped his balls and squeezed gently as she licked his hard shaft. She glanced up at him. His entire face was screwed up in ecstatic agony. His pulse pounded in his neck while he clenched his jaw so hard she hoped it didn’t shatter from the pressure.

  “You’re killing me,” he ground out.

  “I guess I’m just homicidal.”

  “You can commit a crime against me any day of the week, honey.”

  She wasn’t the only one committing the crimes. He’d stolen her heart, and she doubted she’d ever recover it if she even wanted to.

  Estie bent her head and took his dick in one hand while she went down on him. She licked the tip and then took him in her mouth until he was at the back of her throat. She didn’t have any experience deep-throating, and the second she started to gag she backed off a little. Brett didn’t seem to mind how deep she took him as long as she took him. She bobbed her head up and down on him several times until he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her off.

  “I can’t fucking take any more. I need to be buried deep inside you.”

  “I can accommodate that.” Estie needed him too. Like Seattle needed rain, like salmon needed water, like the earth needed oxygen. She crawled up his body, dragging her skin against his, torturing him all the while and reveling in her power.

  Estie ripped open a condom package from the box on the nightstand. She took her time rolling it down his dick, enjoying how it twitched and seemed to get even harder, if that was physically possible.

  Straddling Brett’s body, she lifted her hips and guided her pussy onto him. Brett angled his hips to push deeper inside her until he was fully buried. Estie leaned forward and kissed him, and he kissed her back with the intensity of a starving man. Slow, deep, tender, his kisses consumed her and touched her in places she’d never been touched before, physically and emotionally.

  She moved up and down on him, forcing her fevered body into a slow, even, and torturous rhythm. Finally, she leaned back, and the emotions barreled over her in the greatest emotional rush of all time, like free-falling from an airplane —exhilarating, exciting, and scary as hell. Brett came at the same time. She could feel him inside her, not just his cock, but everything he was and ever would be.

  Everything they could be together flashed through her brain with alarming clarity as they held each other through the powerful orgasm.

  When the storm of emotions subsided, Estie fell against Brett, their bodies spent and sweaty, chests heaving in the same out-of-breath rhythm, skin super sensitized. Laying her cheek against his, she closed her eyes and let herself just be. For a long while, the only sound was their breathing and an occasional whine or scratch at the door.

  Brett was so quiet she thought he must have fallen asleep. Bracing herself on her elbow, she lifted up and looked at his dear face. He wasn’t asleep.

  With a half smile, he stared into her eyes, and she saw it all there. He adored her, but would he love her with all her baggage, all her control issues, rigid planning, everything? Could he truly just love her? Or did he love some perfect aberration that only existed in his mind?

  Could she love him unconditionally? Could she give it all back to him? Or would she shatter his heart and his soul?

  “Brett, I—”

  Brett held a finger to her lips. “There’s a cliché in football, Estie: take the season one game at a time. Let’s do that for now.”

  “Live in the moment?”

  “Yeah,
in the moment.” His pale-blue eyes lit up and his megawatt smile would’ve put her brother to shame. Even so, that sadness lingered on the edge of his upturned lips and behind the sparkles in his eyes.

  His sadness squeezed her heart, and denial didn’t work for her anymore. She was exactly where she needed to be.

  Living in the moment wasn’t good enough, not for her and definitely not for him. She knew that, as sure as she knew her feelings for Brett couldn’t be ignored any longer. But could she handle the messiness, the dark secrets inside him? And what about her future? What about becoming a veterinarian? That was looking more and more like a viable option. Where did that leave them, if she went to vet school and he signed with another team?

  Right now, she didn’t give a damn.

  Brett lay in bed and stared at his eyelids, not wanting to open his eyes, not wanting to break the spell, all due to an incredible, loving woman cuddled next to him. Her naked skin pressed close to his, all silky smooth and warm. He ran a hand down her back and cupped her rounded ass. God, she felt good in his hands, against his body, skin to skin, heart to heart, mind to mind, and she’d felt even better when he’d been inside her, taking her slow and easy or hard and fast. Yeah, they’d done both last night. He’d fallen into an exhausted sleep then woken in the middle of the night for the second half of the game. Only it wasn’t a game, not to Brett. What he felt for Estie went far beyond any game he’d ever played in.

  Estie stirred beside him, and he smiled down at her, stroking her hair with one hand and squeezing her bare hip with the other. She blinked several times, smiled up at him, and rested her cheek on his chest with the top of her head grazing his chin. Everything felt so good, so right, so fucking incredible.

  Something weighed heavily on his feet. At some point in the middle of the night, Marilyn had crawled onto the bed, while Jim purred into his ear on the pillow next to him. Brett had to smile. He’d been doing a lot of that lately, and frankly, he liked it. Really, really liked it. Just like he liked how good Estie made him feel just by being in the same room with him. The emptiness he’d lived with for the majority of his life faded away as she filled in the blank spaces.

  “Good morning,” he whispered, his voice sounding husky to his own ears.

  “Good morning.” Her soft, sexy voice got a rise out of him. His morning wood jumped back into the ring, ready for another round, and it wasn’t the only part of him that was ready.

  Estie trailed little kisses along his collarbone, and he shuddered. God, she did it for him. He kissed the top of her head and kneaded her ass with his fingers.

  She rose up, her elbows on his chest, and stared him in the eyes. Her deep-blue eyes shone with determination, and he knew something had changed, but he sure as hell didn’t know what.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s you.” Her eyes lit up with a dazzling inner sparkle. She ran a finger across his cheek, her touch featherlight.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you, Brett Gunnels. You are one amazing, wonderful man, and I don’t know what I did right to deserve you, but I swear to God I won’t screw up this gift. Not this time.”

  “I see.” Actually, he didn’t. In fact, he was a little confused but more than a lot hopeful.

  “I doubt you do, but you will.” Her smile radiated with promises, promises of a future he’d only dared dream. Already his brain played a video of a little house in the country full of kids and animals.

  Estie kissed him full on the mouth while her hand slid down his flat stomach. She wrapped her fingers around him and stroked up and down. Brett groaned and took the kiss deeper, wanting to absorb her into his skin, into his soul, into every cell in his body.

  The ring of his cell phone jarred him back to the present. Brett grabbed it off the nightstand to silence it, then noticed Harris’s name.

  “Oh, crap, it’s your brother. I was supposed to meet him at the Steelheads’ facility at six thirty.” He checked the time. It was seven thirty a.m., and he was somewhat shocked that Tyler waited that long to call. Maybe he’d dealt with his own version of morning wood.

  Brett held the phone up to mouth and shot Estie a look that said be quiet. She smiled wickedly at him, and he knew he was in deep shit.

  “Hey,” he said into the phone as casually as he could manage with a woman licking her way down his body.

  “Where the fuck are you? You’re late.”

  “Sure am. I’m betting you were late, too, since it’s an hour after we’d agreed to meet.”

  “Yeah, but I’m here, and you aren’t.”

  Brett suppressed a groan as Estie took his dick in her mouth.

  “You have a woman there, don’t you?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I’m not a dumb shit. You’re distracted again, just like you’ve been the last several days. Your fucking attitude isn’t going to win a championship. Get your lazy ass out of bed. You have fifteen minutes to get here, and you’d better bring coffee and donuts.” Harris cut off the call.

  Brett laid the phone down and pressed his head against the pillow while Estie worked her magic on him. She lifted her head and looked at him. “What did my brother say?”

  “To get my ass there in fifteen minutes.”

  Estie shrugged. “Fuck him.”

  “Yeah, no shit. Where were we?”

  Estie lowered her head and went back to work while Brett forgot all about an impatient Harris ready to rip him a new one.

  Chapter Twelve

  Threading the Needle

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  Brett pushed the big bodies off him with the craziness of a wild man. He was sick and tired of being chased out of the pocket and slammed to the ground. He swore he’d spent more time buried under bodies in the first half of the game than he had standing in the pocket and throwing the ball.

  Shooting to his feet, he stalked to the huddle on third and twenty-five. His first fucking playoff game as a starter, and they were getting their asses handed to them on a platinum platter. The score was twenty-one to seven with the Packers leading at 12:27 in the third quarter. Plenty of time to pull this game out of the dumpster if Brett rallied the troops and kicked some Packer ass. There was no fucking way his first playoff game was going to be his last.

  The boys in the huddle regarded him warily, sensing he was pissed. Well, hell yeah, he was. He was damn tired of the line playing like a bunch of pansies and his receivers dropping every perfect ball he threw their way.

  Only he didn’t verbally dress them down. Instead, Brett looked each guy in the eyes, letting them see his complete buy-in. He telegraphed his determination to them. At first, they just stared back. Then, one by one, their expressions changed to ones of like determination. It hit him hard that he had the power as the team leader to kindle the fire of like minds and like goals.

  They were going places. These were his guys. This was his team. Not Harris’s, not Zach’s, but his, and he’d show the world that Brett Gunnels could compete with the best despite all his physical minuses.

  Football at this level was mostly mental. He’d heard that a million times. The best quarterbacks had the “it” factor, that indefinable thing that made them rise above all adversity. It wasn’t the best arm or the fastest feet or the best ability to read the defense, it was the drive inside a guy who never gave up and never stopped believing.

  With a satisfied nod that he had his teammates mentally slapped out of their slump, Brett barked out the play, a slant pass to Bruiser. Bruiser nodded, his square jaw set as if he’d do this or die.

  They lined up, Brett in shotgun. A split second later, he flipped the ball to Bruiser and his buddy powered through several Packers, pushing them out of his way, dragging a few with him before they dropped off, stiff-arming another for a twenty-seven-yard gain.

  First and ten. They were on their way.

  Brett threw a few more short passes for first downs. Then he hit Derek on a thirty-yard pass play for an easy walk into
the end zone.

  And the rest of the game went the Steelheads’ way. Final score: twenty-eight to twenty-one, Steelheads. And just like that, Brett won his first playoff game. The Steelheads were in the NFC Championship Game. And he was the hero.

  Just like that.

  Almost too easy. Scary easy. It should be harder to make it one game away from a Super Bowl.

  One fucking game.

  An hour later, Brett sat alone in the locker room and stared at the Number Ten jersey hanging in his locker. Buzz, the equipment guy, came through and picked up towels, then he left Brett to his thoughts. The room was eerily quiet compared with the earlier celebratory noise. He’d promised the guys he’d make an appearance at the Bull Dog Pub afterward. He wasn’t really in the mood. He’d rather go home to his furry kids.

  And Estie.

  On cue, his cell played that stupid happy tune it played when a text message came in. He grabbed it from his locker, glanced at it, and a slow smile spread across his face.

  The entire team is here waiting for you. Where are you? E

  She was at the pub, waiting for him. Brett shot to his feet, shrugged into his sport coat, and hurried out the door. Ten minutes later, he strode into the private room at the pub as if he owned the place, amid backslapping and bear hugs. Brett couldn’t stop smiling. Then he saw her, and he smiled all the more.

  She sat at a pub table with Lavender, Kelsie, and an elegant, tall Black woman he couldn’t recall ever meeting. Their eyes met, and Brett nodded briefly. They weren’t exactly out of the closet regarding their affair, and Brett decided he’d leave it to her to decide if and when she’d reveal that truth.

  Brett took his time working his way to Estie’s high-top table, even as he felt her eyes on him as he made his way across the room. Finally, after what seemed like a torturous lifetime, he stood beside the table. Lavender and Kelsie left to join their men and only Estie and her friend remained.

  “Hey.” He hitched his hip on the barstool, ignoring the shooting pain in his thigh, the throbbing at his temples, and the bruised ribs—such was the life of an NFL quarterback.