by Ann Jacobs
She ached now. Not for anybody. Only him. Some bad girl she’d turned out to be.
Well, maybe she was a little bad, because she ached to touch his big, delicious cock, open her pussy for him to pleasure. Taste him on her tongue and have him fill the empty spot inside her and make her come.
She’d been a fool to walk out. To let pride get the better of her desires. Maybe in time he’d love her. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe it didn’t matter that he’d asked her out because he was looking for some quick sex.
Casey had never been lonelier.
A few minutes later Lisa and Mike joined her at the kitchen table, both looking disgustingly satisfied.
“Come on, Casey,” Lisa told her. “We’re taking you out for the day. Time to quit crying over your lawyer and have some fun.”
Casey didn’t want to go. But Lisa wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Come on,” she said when she followed Casey into her room. “You’ve got to help me keep this thing with Mike from getting out of hand.”
“He’s getting into your head?” Mike had obviously gotten to Lisa’s pussy, Casey thought uncharitably.
“I’m afraid he may have. Come on, girlfriend, you don’t want me to go do something I’ll regret.”
“Okay. Do I need to change?”
“You’re fine. Brush your hair and let’s get going.”
* * * * *
Casey didn’t want to watch the games Craig had trained so hard for. The games he’d said were one more rung on his ladder to success.
How could Lisa have dragged her here to the gym?
Chlorine stung her eyes. Or was it unshed tears? She didn’t know.
Sunlight streamed through the fiberglass ceiling panels. Swimmers and spectators milled around on the deck. She liked the pool better in moonlight, when no one had been around to distract her from watching Craig.
Had it really been only eleven days since they’d swum here in the moonlight, since she’d admired his powerful stroke and his long, lean body while he did his workout? Eleven days? It seemed like years since she’d touched and tasted him, even though in her head she knew it hadn’t been quite a week.
Trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible, Casey hugged the damp concrete wall outside the women’s dressing room and eyed the competitors.
“Wow. Testosterone city,” Lisa said, her gaze drifting over the nearly naked competitors huddled near the edge of the pool.
Mike pulled Lisa close and wrapped his muscular arms around her. “My money’s on the cops.”
The detectives in their blue Speedos outnumbered the lawyers in their red suits. For the most part, Casey thought, they looked younger and in a lot better shape. Except for Craig. His washboard abs didn’t hang out the way some of his teammates’ beer guts did. Half a head taller than most of the others on his team, he had a body honed for maximum efficiency. Casey admired his hard, well-developed muscles, cut but not bulging.
Familiar muscles that made her drool. And made her wet with need. She watched the slow, easy rise and fall of his lightly furred chest and remembered how his flat coppery nipples hardened when she’d teased them with her tongue.
Apparently nothing fazed him. His jaw was set, his gaze focused. Totally focused, she imagined, on the races ahead. Last weekend he’d been that focused on her. But he hadn’t been that calm and collected.
Her nipples hardened. Moisture welled up between her legs. Damn him. He’d planted his cock in her brain as well as her body. She was a fool to have walked out. Twice a fool because she still wanted him to want her for more than sex.
When he climbed onto a starting block, his thigh muscles contracted visibly. The scar on his thigh looked more pronounced now than it had when she first noticed it. She wanted to feel those hard, well-defined muscles quiver again when he was buried deep inside her pussy.
A gun went off, and four guys hit the water.
Craig was good. Half a pool length better than the young detective who came in second, whose buddies were now hauling his oxygen-starved body out of the water. Craig’s biceps bulged as he levered himself out of the pool unaided. Casey wanted to feel those muscles again, up close and personal.
“Your man’s a hell of a swimmer,” Mike said while the next race was going on.
“He went to college on a swimming scholarship.”
Lisa rubbed the back of her head against Mike’s chest. “You played baseball, didn’t you?”
“Until I screwed up my elbow.”
Casey half-listened to Lisa and Mike while she watched the next two events.
“Casey?” Craig’s deep voice poured over her like honey.
How had he managed to sneak up on her?
She tried to back up, but the wall was in the way. She was neatly trapped. “Congratulations. You won.”
“Did I?”
What did he mean? “Of course. You smoked the other guys.”
“It would have been a shocker if I hadn’t. Not to mention that my boss probably would have fired me. The best of my competition was an also-ran high school swimmer.”
“Why are you asking me if you won, then?”
He looked into her eyes. “I’m asking about us. You’re here. Does that mean you’re willing to give me another chance?”
“I don’t know.” Could she risk shattering an already fractured heart to fulfill the fierce demands of her body?
“Hey, Craig, you’re up again,” one of his teammates yelled.
He cradled her cheek in his hand. “Please.”
“They need you over there.” She tried not to let his touch erode her resolve.
“Okay. Will you at least be at the finish line this afternoon when I get done with the triathlon?”
She couldn’t resist the plea in his voice—not that she imagined Lisa and Mike would let her escape even if she tried. “I’ll be there.”
As she followed him with her gaze as he hurried across the pool deck, she made her decision. More accurately she remembered the decision she’d made after Buck had ditched her for a woman who fulfilled his fantasies.
Craig was the man of her dreams, and she intended to act out every fantasy she’d ever had with him.
So what if she wasn’t the woman who fit perfectly into his well-defined life plan? What did it matter if he had an agenda that didn’t include a serious relationship in the foreseeable future? Casey had no desire to be Craig’s best buddy, no need for him to see her as the good girl who lived next door and no need to punish herself by playing the outraged former virgin she didn’t want to be.
If he came to love her, fine. If not, she’d live with that, too. At least she would have lived. And loved. And experienced more of the incredible erotic sensations Craig had given her a first taste of last weekend. She closed her eyes, imagined his wonderful blue eyes glowing with desire as he fit himself inside her and began an erotic dance.
Suddenly Casey couldn’t wait until the games were over.
* * * * *
The marker ribbon blew in the breeze, a welcome reminder that this triathlon was almost finished. As was Craig.
One more kilometer to go. His lungs burned. Every damaged muscle, tendon, and ligament in his left leg screamed its protest every time his foot made contact with the blacktop pavement.
Damn, his three hundred dollar running shoes were supposed to have cushioned the impact, but they were doing a lousy job.
Spectators cheered. The fierce sun beat down on him. Sweat poured out from under the soaked band around his head and dripped into his eyes. And the sound of pounding feet behind him let him know someone was getting close.
Too close. He drew into his reserves, increased the pace. His leg protested. His best wasn’t going to be good enough, he thought when a runner drew up beside him.
Maybe it was Dwayne. But it wasn’t. From the corner of his eye Craig noticed a blur of dark blue. He had to cross the line first.
Gasping for air, he made himself move faster. Ignoring the
pain, he matched the pace set by the cop who was trying to get past him.
Running had never been his forte. Bicycling, either. Even before the accident. When he’d climbed out of the water from the swim, no one had been close. This guy had been nowhere in sight, but he sure as hell had caught up now.
Suddenly Craig was staring at his back. And more pounding feet reverberated on the pavement not far behind him. You’ve got to win. First and fourth will do it. Can’t count on Dwayne to come in third. The boss’s shouted admonition still rang in Craig’s ears.
The team was counting on him.
He held the grueling pace, waited for an adrenaline rush that didn’t come.
Then he remembered Casey. She’d said she’d see him at the finish line. He wanted her to see him as a winner. Not a loser. He didn’t want to be a loser in her eyes.
He summoned the last of his strength and willed one last burst of speed his body couldn’t deliver on its own. He saw red. Green. Bright flashes of yellow. A kaleidoscope of colors bathed in agony. And a finish line up ahead.
It was almost over. Five more steps. Four. Three. Two. Had he won? It didn’t matter now. He’d crossed the line and collapsed at Casey’s feet.
“Get him some water,” a woman called out.
Someone else yelled, “Move back.”
The shouts echoed in Craig’s ears as though they came from another time, another place. He gasped for breath and cushioned his cheek on Casey’s smooth, warm thigh. She wiped the sweat off his face, first with her palm, then with something that felt cool and damp.
“Try to drink this.” The bottle she held to his parched lips was ice-cold and mercifully wet.
When he managed to control his breathing he gulped, then sputtered.
“Careful. Not too much at one time,” she cautioned.
“Let’s move him over in the shade, away from the finish line.” Dwayne grabbed both his arms and heaved him out of Casey’s lap.
Craig couldn’t let her get away.
But he couldn’t gather enough breath to talk, so he got a hold on the belt loop of her shorts and dragged her along.
“Are you okay?” she asked a few minutes later.
Craig’s sweat-soaked hair cooled Casey’s thigh when he turned his head. “I think so. Did I win?”
“Yes.”
Bright sunlight filtered through the fat leaves of the tree where Craig’s coworkers had brought him to recuperate, imprinting a pattern on his golden-tanned flesh.
“I had to do it, you know.”
No, Casey didn’t know. These games, though hard-fought, weren’t about winning or losing as far as she could tell. They were about helping fund a children’s shelter.
“Why?”
“Part of the plan. Keep the boss happy.”
There it was, Craig’s plan. The plan that had him picking out a wife a few years down the road and settling down, among other milestones that he’d mentioned the other night.
The plan that had kept him a virgin until an obstacle popped up in his well-orchestrated career path and made him hit on her to end that state.
“Hey Craig. Get over here. We need you in this picture,” someone bellowed over the noise from the crowd.
“Help me up?”
He should stay here and rest until his pulse slowed down, but Casey knew he wouldn’t, so she helped him to his feet and stepped away.
“Come with me.”
“I’ll wait here.” This was his win, and he deserved to enjoy it.
“No.”
With surprising strength for someone who had passed out moments earlier, he took her hand and pulled her up against his sweaty body. When they reached the crowd of celebrating lawyers, though, Casey hung back with Lisa and Mike.
“Traitors,” she whispered.
Lisa smiled. “Give the guy a chance. Mike and I are heading out now. We’ll be at his place if you need us.”
So Mike was back in Lisa’s life, at least for now. That was good. Casey glanced at Craig.
“He hasn’t asked me to go with him.”
“He will,” Lisa told her. “He’s the one who begged me to get you here.”
With that, Lisa tugged at Mike’s hand, and they left Casey standing there alone.
* * * * *
Craig wanted Casey with him. Not hanging back as though she didn’t belong.
He responded automatically to his boss’s congratulations and his co-workers’ wisecracks. He laughed at jokes about the competition’s ineptness—though as a matter of fact the detectives had been worthy opponents, even for him and the others Wells said he’d recruited for the main purpose of kicking Chief Delgado’s butt.
Beating that weekend triathlete had damn near killed him. His lungs were still burning now, thirty minutes after having finished the race. And he could barely put any weight on his bum leg.
“Hey, Craig. Are you bringing your girl to dinner?” Dwayne looked like Craig felt— drained.
“I don’t think so.” The idea of eating food made his stomach queasy. Besides, even though Casey had stayed and nursed him after he collapsed at the finish line, he was none too certain she’d agree to go with him on anything resembling a date.
“Congratulations on finishing third,” he told Dwayne. “That guy was good.”
“Damn good. We’re lucky you blew him away on the swimming leg. Hey, you ought to come celebrate. After all, we wouldn’t have won without you.”
Craig wanted to celebrate with Casey. Alone. Not that he was in shape to do much more than cuddle with her on his bed if she was willing, which was a big “if.”
But maybe she’d like to socialize. “Casey?”
Noticing that Lisa and her boyfriend apparently had deserted her, he motioned for her to join him. He loved the way she smiled. And the bare expanse of satiny skin between her red shorts and the tropical-print sleeveless shirt she had on gave his cock ideas his body was in no shape at the moment to follow up on. “Would you like to go celebrate with these clowns?”
She looked down at herself and grinned. “I’m not exactly dressed to kill.” Her gaze shifted to his torso. “Come to think of it, neither are you.”
“We’ll go change, first.”
Suddenly his soaked-through biking shorts and tank top itched. The stench of his own sweat filled his nostrils. “I don’t know about you, but I need a shower—bad.”
Her nose was cute when she wrinkled it up. “You are a little ripe.”
“We’ll clean up, then celebrate. Okay?”
“Okay.”
No argument. She had mellowed since Monday night. Craig made a mental note to do something nice for that hot little roommate of hers whose powers of persuasion must have done his own skills one better. Finally remembering the manners his mom had drilled into his head, he introduced Casey to Dwayne and other coworkers in the immediate vicinity.
“We’ll meet you at Bennie’s Place,” he told Dwayne. “Seven thirty, right?”
“Right. Earlier if you want to down a few before we order. Aren’t you planning to stick around for the trophy presentation? Wells is expecting you to accept it for the team and say a few words.”
“Let him accept the trophy. He’s been waiting long enough to get the damn thing. I’m out of here.”
Getting Casey back in his life meant a hell of a lot more to Craig than collecting a stupid trophy. She meant more than his timetable, more even than his carefully laid plans for success.
Chapter Sixteen
“Mr. Wells gave me the creeps,” she said late that night when she crawled into his bed after the celebration.
“If he weren’t the state attorney, I’d have decked him. I should have, anyway.” The obnoxious bastard had barely been able to keep his paws off Casey. Of course, most of his male colleagues had kept shooting admiring glances her way, too. That hadn’t surprised Craig. What had surprised him was that the women at the party seemed to like her, too.
Of course they hadn’t seen her in those neon
outfits she wore at the gym or the fuck-me please black minidress that had his tongue hanging out when she’d worn it last weekend. His balls tightened when he recalled that see-through nightie he’d peeled off her. No one but him had ever seen her in that. He wanted to keep it that way.
Tonight she’d stepped out of her room wearing a simple long sheath dress that veiled her most obvious assets, and he was damn grateful. The black mini might have made Wells’ eyes pop out of his head.
“I liked your dress,” he told her.
She looked damn sexy now as she sat up and slithered out of his T-shirt that she’d commandeered to use as a robe. Gloriously naked, she snuggled up beside him and propped her head up on one hand.
“You looked nice, too. But I like you best like this.” She ran her hand down his bare torso, stopping to trace the jagged scar on his thigh.
Her warmth contrasted pleasantly with cool air that made its way from the air conditioner vent, and the faint fragrance of his soap-on-a-rope lingered on her body. It smelled a lot better on her than it did on him.
“How’s your leg?” she asked.
“In agonizing pain at the moment, but I’ll live.” He met her worried gaze. “Don’t say it. I’ve got nobody but me to blame.”
Every muscle in his body ached. He didn’t want to move, but that didn’t keep his balls from aching or his cock from standing at attention when she wriggled around and caught it between her small hands.
“Part of you apparently has made a quick recovery,” she whispered, then nibbled at his ear.
“The key word is ‘part.’ If you want to fuck tonight, you’ll have to do most of the work. I think I may die.” As if to dispute him, his cock twitched in her hands.
Her hands warmed his back where she stroked him. Gentle pressure on his backside urged him closer. Her hard little nipples dug into his chest.
Damn it, he wished he had the energy to move enough so he could bathe them with his tongue. He stroked her satiny bottom, then moved his hand between her legs and stroked her wet, warm slit. She was just as silky there. Only hotter. And deliciously wet. He slipped one finger inside her cunt.