“Because who wants to admit something like that to themselves much less anyone else? For ten years, I’ve been lusting after my best friend, and all he sees is the little sister he never had. It’s pathetic. And humiliating. Can’t forget humiliating.”
“My question still stands. Why don’t you just tell him the truth?” Sophia lifted an arm and signaled their waitress who stood at a nearby table. With a circular motion over their heads, she gestured for another round of drinks. “I mean, at this point, what do you have to lose?”
Tennyson laughed, and the sound grated against her throat. “Uh, the little pride I have left? Years ago, Dom had the Friend Zone conversation with me and laid it out there that he would never feel more than friendship toward me. Did I mention this was after I foolishly confessed to him how much I loved and wanted him?”
“Damn.” Sophia winced. “Ouch.”
“Yep. Ouch. Though I tried to play it off, it hurt our relationship for a little afterwards. I’m not going to risk that again. Besides, have you looked at me lately?” Tennyson leaned back and swept a hand up and down her torso. “Between the time I arrived and now, did I somehow grow eight inches, lose fifteen pounds, and get rid of my ass? Dom goes for women like you,” she said, flicking fingers at both of her friends. “Not me. And even if he did somehow crack his head, forget that I’m his precious BFF, and we had sex, how long do you think it would be before he lost interest? Then his guilt would only fuck up the relationship we have. No thanks. I don’t need to be anyone’s regret.”
“That’s not true,” Sophia objected, but Renee remained silent. Because her other friend had experienced exactly what Tennyson described.
Renee and Jason Wilder, the last member of their tight circle, had grown up together along with Ronin in the Seattle area. Earlier in the year, Renee and Jason had decided to add sex to their relationship. And that had been the demise of the friendship they’d had since childhood—and the easy closeness of their group. Now, the two of them could barely stand to be in the same room with each other, and the rest of them were like family caught up in the aftermath of divorcees. It hadn’t come down to choosing sides yet, but if the bitterness between the two didn’t ease up, the rest of them might eventually find themselves in that awkward position. Sophia hadn’t met Zeph yet when all this went down, but the disastrous fallout had made the others vow to remain in the friend zone with each other. None of them wanted another clusterfuck like Renee and Jason’s to tear the rest of the group apart.
“Is that why you’re quitting as his PA?” Renee asked.
She shrugged. “My other reasons are still true, but yeah, that is part of it. I know it may seem like I’m running away…”
“No, it doesn’t,” Renee murmured. “If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have screwed up Jason’s and my relationship with sex. Once you cross that line, there is no going back. My advice? Don’t tell him, and just move on like you’ve planned.”
“But you don’t know it won’t work out,” Sophia softly interjected, even as she gave Renee’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You’re older, and in different places in your lives. You two could be different. But you’ll never know if you’re not honest with Dom. Believe me, if anyone has learned that keeping things from a person will only blow up in your face, I have.”
“I appreciate both of you, I do.” Though the conversation had taken a sobering turn, she was thankful to be able to call the two women friends. Hell, family. “But tonight I’d prefer not to think about Dom or men in general.”
Sophia grinned. “Fine by me.”
“Me, too,” Renee agreed, though Tennyson detected the lingering sadness in her green eyes.
At that moment, their waitress arrived with their next round of drinks balanced on her tray. As she set the glasses on the table, Tennyson plucked hers up and held it in the air.
“Now, let’s commence with the business of getting fucked up.”
…
Dom shut off the television in the den, and, groaning, pushed himself to his feet and carefully stretched. Yesterday’s game had been brutal, and he still bore some of the bruises and definitely the pain. He’d endured worse, but the loss to Atlanta seemed to make the aches scream louder than usual. That and knowing every defeat was like another boulder added to the already stumbling weight on his shoulders. He’d let his team, coaches, and the fans down. Yeah, football was a team sport, but as the quarterback, he led them, was accountable for and to them. Each loss was a personal failure. God, he hated failure.
And not to mention, every time he missed a receiver or threw an interception, he could feel Jensen breathing down his neck, waiting for the opportunity to capitalize on Dom’s fuck-ups. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to battle for his position, and it wouldn’t be the last. All his focus should be on their upcoming game against Buffalo, on perfecting his performance. But for the last few hours, instead of studying his play book and film of the Bills’ past games, he’d been staring at his iPad and seeing Tenny, not players crashing into each other.
Something had happened between them earlier. Something he couldn’t pinpoint or name.
For a second there, as they’d sat on the couch, glaring at each other over her insistence on meeting up with a perfect stranger, he thought he’d glimpsed arousal in her eyes. Which was ridiculous, impossible. There’d never been anything between them but the closest friendship. Well, except for that time when she’d been drunk and claimed to want him. But that had been the alcohol talking. Tenny had said so the next morning.
And yet…yet, he knew a woman’s body, her mannerisms, the signs she gave off when she wanted to fuck him. He might avoid relationships like they were Egyptian plagues, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have years of experience. And for a moment, he’d believed the flush along her high cheekbones, the parting of her soft, full lips, the quick rise and fall of her pretty breasts…
Shit.
Wait. Wait, wait, wait.
Soft lips? Pretty breasts? He dragged a hand through his hair, fisting the strands at the back of his head. The pull and slight sting along his scalp served as a punishment and reminder. This was Tennyson. He didn’t—couldn’t—think of her like that.
Like what? A woman? He shook his head. As if the abrupt motion could rock loose the snide, insidious thought. The conversation with Zeph and Ronin must still be bothering him. That was the only explanation.
As if conjured by the force of his denial, an image of her flickered and solidified. Her, standing across the room in the black shirt, painted-on jeans, and high-heeled ankle boots that made her already toned, tight legs appear even more toned and tight. Petite, with breasts that would fill a man’s hands, a tiny waist, and an ass that on any other woman would’ve had him panting, Tenny possessed the perfect hourglass figure. And though the outfit she’d worn damn near covered her from neck to toe, it’d still highlighted every curve, every dip, every sensual detail. Hell, he hadn’t even been able to stop his gaze from dropping to the deeper-than-he-was-comfortable-with neckline of her top and taking in all that honeyed wheat flesh and its shadowed cleft. If she’d been anyone else, he would’ve wondered if that mysterious valley carried the heavier, muskier scent of her skin. He would’ve begged to find out…with his tongue.
But she wasn’t someone else, goddamn it. She was his best friend, the person he trusted most in this world. And no way in hell would he jeopardize that precious gift with sex. He’d seen for himself the wreckage getting naked and sweaty with a friend left behind. They all had. Jason and Renee’s shitstorm had made his entire circle of friends swear to keep their hands off one another. In this business where a smile could be a precursor to a knife in the back, players needed good, trustworthy friends. They were as priceless as a perfect season. And sometimes as rare.
Still, the hands-off-friends pact was moot. Because he didn’t want to fuck Tennyson. Didn’t see her as a woman to sink so deep into he’d need a fucking treasure map to find his way back out. A wom
an to drag screams from. A woman to make explode in pleasure and convulse around his cock.
No, he didn’t want that with her.
And when he went upstairs and lay on his bed, it wouldn’t be her face he envisioned as he pumped his dick into his fist.
“Shit,” he muttered, stalking from the den. This was crazy; he must be more tired than he thought. His phone vibrated against his thigh, and he silently thanked whoever called for the interruption of the Tilt-a-Whirl his brain had obviously jumped on. Removing the cell from his shorts pocket, he glanced at the caller ID screen and frowned. Swiping the answer bar, he pressed the phone to his ear. “Hey, Sophia.”
“Hi, Dom,” Zeph’s girlfriend greeted him. “I hate to bother you this late, but can you come to your front door?”
What the hell? But even as the question pulsed in his head, he’d already turned toward the foyer. An alarm set up in his chest, blinking its red caution with every heartbeat. “What’s wrong? Is it Zeph?” The two had only been together a few months, but they were inseparable. And if she was at Dom’s door at almost midnight…
“Uh, no. It’s…” But he didn’t hear the rest of her explanation because he’d reached the front of the house and, after quickly disarming the security system, jerked the door open.
Oh God.
Fear punched past alarm, throttling toward his throat. Sophia stood in the doorway. And Tenny leaned on her shoulder, head down. Jesus, was she hurt? What happened? He needed to call…
Tenny’s head popped up, a huge grin lighting up her face. “Hiiiiii!” she sang, waving, as if he could miss her standing less than a foot in front of him. Slowly, panic released him from its icy claws, and relief rushed in, irritation fast on its heels.
She wasn’t injured. Just shit-faced.
“Sophia,” he growled, not removing his attention from his best friend and her glassy eyes. “What. The. Fuck?”
The other woman shrugged, smiling. “Margaritas followed by tequila shots.” She shifted, tightening her hold around Tenny’s shoulders. Sophia was a tall woman, but supporting drunken dead weight had to be tiring.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he grumbled, reaching for Tenny. Gently, he slid his arm around her waist, easing her into his side.
“Sorry to just show up here,” Sophia apologized, following them inside the foyer. “I tried to take her to my house, but she insisted on going home. I couldn’t leave her alone like this, so I brought her here. I hope you don’t mind.”
Mind? Hell no. Tenny was wasted, and anything could happen if she was left alone at her apartment. And besides, his house was as much hers as his.
As if just realizing where she stood, Tenny straightened, her head swinging from side to side, then up and down. “Hey, this isn’t my place,” she complained, whirling around to face Sophia. Cursing, he grabbed her waist before she could tumble back on her ass. “You tricked me,” she slurred, pointing a finger at Sophia. Or rather, to the left of her.
The other woman snorted. “Those tequila shots can have you seeing double. Well,” she said, backpedaling toward the door. “I have to get Renee home.”
“I’m guessing she’s not as bombed,” Dom drawled, once more wrapping an arm around Tenny, steadying her.
“Now that woman can hold her liquor. Although, she has been singing Broadway show tunes the whole ride out here. When we got out of the car, she was on ‘Defying Gravity’ from Wicked. Night.” Laughing, she left, closing the door behind her.
Sighing, Dom tucked Tenny closer under his shoulder and slowly turned her toward the staircase. Tequila and the citrus-scented shampoo she’d used for years drifted up to him, and the protective streak that had been forged in their childhood squeezed his chest in a vise-like grip. Since his parents’ death, he and God had an understanding: he didn’t bother God, and God didn’t bother him. Yet, Dom couldn’t deny it hadn’t been a mistake Tenny had been brought to the same home as him. They’d been meant to be in each other’s lives.
She was his to protect, to ensure the ugliness in this world didn’t touch her again. Hell, she’d suffered enough of it with a mother—and he used the term loosely—who’d sought attention and sympathy by fabricating sickness symptoms and diagnoses in her own daughter. Tenny had been through hell, carted from doctor to doctor, enduring unnecessary test after test, even a surgery. All so her mother could get her psychological and emotional high. Psychiatrists called it Munchausen syndrome by proxy; he called it crazy as fuck.
It was this desire to shelter her that had him balking at her leaving him. He hadn’t been able to protect his parents from a fatal car crash on their way to one of his Pop Warner football games. Yeah, he got that the accident wasn’t his fault, but it didn’t stop him from this almost desperate, visceral need to shield Tenny, to keep her close.
Hell, maybe he was the crazy one.
“I had the best time,” she gushed, breaking into his thoughts. She didn’t drink often—he could count on one hand how many times, including one very memorable instance—and, he’d never seen her this wasted. She was apparently a chatty drunk. A loud, chatty drunk. “Girls’ Night Out. It should be a thing. Is it a thing? If not, it totally should be a thing.”
“I think it’s a thing. Hence the naming of it,” he said drily, continuing to guide her toward the stairs. Damn, getting her up those steps wasn’t going to be fun. At all.
“I had the best time,” she crowed.
“You said that,” he muttered, shuffling her forward.
“I always learn something new from Renee and Sophia. Like margaritas are God’s way of saying ‘I love you.’” She smacked her lips, humming. “And did you know that dicks could bend to the left?”
Dom stumbled. “Fuck.”
“Doesn’t that sound like it hurts?” she blathered on. “Does yours bend? I never noticed.”
She started to look down, but gritting his teeth, he cupped her chin so her glassy gaze met his.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
“Tennyson,” he growled, hauling her up into his arms. Screw this. She shrieked in his ear, throwing her arms around his neck. “I swear to God I’m going to get Renee and Sophia back for this,” he threatened, climbing the steps.
“Noooo,” she objected, drawing the word out until it stretched into three syllables. “They’re the only ones happy for me. Not like you,” she groused, snuggling into his chest.
She turned so her breasts pressed against him, and shit, he couldn’t stop himself from glancing down himself. Her flesh pillowed out of the deep V of her top, giving him a glimpse of the lacy edge of her black bra. That silken, golden skin rimmed in midnight lace—innocence wrapped in sin. Jesus Christ. He didn’t pray, but it didn’t stop him from calling on the deity for strength to tear his too-damn-fascinated scrutiny away from her.
Cursing, he took the rest of the stairs two at a time. Once he hit the second floor landing, he rushed down the hall toward the room he’d appointed hers. Bumping his hip against the partially closed door, he charged inside and dropped her to the bed. As soon as he released her, he took a step back. Damn that. Two steps.
Tenny didn’t seem to notice his reaction, instead falling back on the mattress and spreading her limbs wide like a snow angel. She sighed, her lashes lowering. Several minutes passed, and she didn’t stir. Had she fallen off to sleep that fast?
“Tenny.” He risked inching closer.
“Hmm.” She didn’t open her eyes.
“I’ll be right back. Don’t move.” When she didn’t reply, he heaved a sigh that could’ve parted the Red Sea. “Wiggle a finger if you hear me.”
She wiggled two.
Taking that as an assent, he hurried down the stairs to the kitchen for a big glass of water, then to the master bedroom’s bathroom for a bottle of aspirin. Moments later, he hustled back toward Tenny’s room. God, please let her be awake. He shook his head as he neared her door. Trying to drag her out of a dead sleep when she was sober was like wrestling a feral cat. Wast
ed, it would probably be like wrestling a litter of them—
Fuuuuuuck.
His shoulder hit the doorjamb, but the jarring pain faded beneath the white noise that rushed into his head in a crashing wave. Shock tore through him, and his fingers tightened on the glass and bottle in his hands, damn near crushing both.
She’d obeyed his order and remained on the bed. But maybe he should’ve added “Keep your clothes on,” because between the time he’d left her and now, she’d gotten rid of her shirt, jeans, and boots. Christ, she had the body of a goddess. Back before thin, small-chested women became the epitome of beauty, she would’ve been painted on murals and canvases. All those curves and soft skin would’ve been worshipped.
Black lace and silk cupped her gorgeous beasts, lifting them high as if offering them for a gentle caress, and not-so-soft gentle pinch. A long, savoring taste. The same material slid high over her hips and dipped to stroke between her legs, covering her…hiding her from him. Air whistled in and out of his lungs as if he’d just run ten gassers back-to-back at full speed. Every liter of blood in his body raced south to fill his cock.
Until this moment, he didn’t know he’d wanted to discover if her sex would be the café au lait tone that covered the rest of her body. Would tight curls the same dark brown, almost black shade of her hair shield her, or would her folds be bare and glistening with arousal? Would her light scent of sun-warmed breezes and fresh rain be more condensed, headier between those toned, rounded thighs? Goddamn, he wanted to find out for himself.
He stumbled back a step. From her and the last blasphemous thought that had just run through his lust-hazed mind.
Lust. For Tennyson. It was…wrong. About fifteen different kinds of fucked up.
He’d seen his friend in a bathing suit before. How was this any different? His cock jerked behind his shorts. Right. He’d hadn’t sprouted a hard-on then. That’s how it was different.
Scoring Off the Field (WAGS series) Page 5