Quarterback Casanova (Kansas City Griffins #1)

by Lisa Rayne

  Tallie didn’t make it through the movie. She fell asleep in front of the fire stretched out on a Griffins stadium blanket. Talon leaned on his elbow beside her. His hands constantly touched her. He rubbed her back or touched her hair while he watched the end of the movie.

  As the credits rolled, he turned contemplative eyes to Naomi. “Cute movie.”

  “Yeah, it’s one of our favorites. I could look at Dwayne Johnson all night long. The man’s a hunk and a half.” She made an exaggerated sigh and flopped back on the couch.

  “Dwayne Johnson is a wuss.”

  Naomi flipped onto her stomach. She mounted her chin on her folded hands. “I dare you to say that to his face.”

  An abrupt chuckle erupted from Talon. “Yeah. Probably not.”

  Tallie stirred. He rubbed her back until she settled.

  The quiet rolled over them, interrupted only by the crackle of the fire and Tallie’s soft breathing. After a while, Dash gathered Tallie and put her to bed. When he returned, Naomi had propped herself up on the couch, legs securely tucked beneath a fuzzy blanket. He sat down, lifting her legs and placing them across his lap, blanket and all.

  His arm went along the back of the couch. He rubbed her legs through the blanket with his other hand. “You still think about your father a lot don’t you?”

  She stilled. Her hand began to pick at the blanket. “A lot more lately than I would like.”

  “Because of Tallie?”

  She just looked at him.

  “And me?”

  She nodded.

  His face turned towards the fire. “I’m sorry about that. I’d like to think my being here for Tallie makes things easier for you.”

  She grabbed for his hand on the back of the couch. “It does, Talon. You’re not like my father. I know the difference now.”

  He looked at her. “Do you?” Hope laced his voice.

  “Yes, I do. It’s not about a high-profile profession or a charisma that attracts women like the Pied Piper or even a confirmed bachelor’s inclination to flirt constantly. It’s about character. Regardless of how carefree a person would like to live his life, life throws out responsibilities from time to time. A man either chooses to step up or to shirk those responsibilities. My father chose the latter.”

  “And that was all about him. It had nothing to do with you.”

  She looked away.

  “Look at me, Naomi.”

  She looked back with sad eyes.

  “You know his choice had nothing to do with you personally, who you were or who you weren’t. Right?”

  “I’m beginning to.”

  His palm cupped her face when she tried to look away again. “If I’d never showed back up after you told me about Tallie, how much of that would you have thought was Tallie’s fault.”

  “None of it,” she burst.

  “So why do you hold an infant you to a different standard?” He released her face. “Let it go, Naomi. Your father chose not to acknowledge you. It was a shitty choice, but he doesn’t deserve your hurt. He’s the one who missed out. Maybe it’s time you let him know that. Time you confronted him so you can free yourself from this pain that isn’t yours to carry. It’s his. Give it back to him and move forward with your life so you can enjoy being a mother without baggage.”

  “We all have baggage.”

  “Yes, but we don’t have to carry it with us indefinitely.”

  She gave him a strange look, and he recognized the irony of his words. He carried his baggage with him constantly and used them as weapons against all comers. He hadn’t allowed himself to see what he and Naomi could be beyond this surface level of really good companions who were great together in bed. He’d resisted fully accepting his twin brother. About the only person he didn’t seem to constantly push away was his foster sister Peyton.

  Maybe Peyton living a state away in Nebraska so that their interactions were mostly long distance made it easier to accept the familial tie, but a family tie it was. No matter his belief that he didn’t need a family, he’d embraced Peyton in his heart like a true sister.

  He’d also embraced Taliana. Just the thought of his little girl spread warmth from his center until it enveloped him from head to toe. “Speaking of taking responsibility, I never thanked you for Tallie.”

  “Thanked me?”

  He nodded. “You had another choice, especially after I let you down. Thank you for having my little girl.” His voice broke.

  Her hand caressed his cheek. “Oh, Talon. There was never another choice for me.”

  “There’s always a choice, Mimi.”

  She shook her head, but couldn’t speak.

  “I understand what you’re saying. I understand who you are. But no matter how you look at it, you made a conscious choice. Based on your personal values, the choice was clear and maybe even easy for you. But, there’s no doubt, you had another option.”

  He gathered her into his arms. “You also could have let your pride rule your head and stayed here during your pregnancy to force me to see the truth. Doing so would have kept you in a dangerous situation that risked our child’s unborn life. I don’t take lightly that you could have ended up telling me a totally different story. One where you’d gotten pregnant with my child, but the baby was gone. I can’t imagine the pain of facing that.”

  His arms tightened around her and she snuggled into his lap. They watched the fire in silence. The heat and cadence of the flames wrapping them in a halo of comfort. Dash relaxed so much, he dozed off.

  He awoke to the feel of Naomi’s hand lazily stroking along his upper chest. He knew the moment she recognized that his breathing had lost the evenness of sleep because her hand stuttered then stilled. Without opening his eyes, he slid a hand under her blanket to the edge of his practice shirt. His fingers whispered lightly against her thigh before they pushed further under the jersey, he moved his hand higher up her thigh.

  She tilted her face up. “Dash?”

  His touch started a tremble low in her abdomen he could feel. He opened his eyes. She let her hand move to the base of his throat. She looked like she wanted to hold on yet needed to move away simultaneously.

  He pressed his fingers to her core, her hips bucked. Everything she felt lay evident through the dampness beneath his touch. Pressing her onto her back, he moved his hand in slow deliberate strokes. “I want you,” he whispered. “And you want me, too.”

  “That doesn’t mean we should do this.”

  He slipped his hand into her panties and pressed two fingers into her. “It definitely means we should do this.”

  *

  Naomi cried out when Dash’s fingers invaded her intimately. Beginning to squirm, she panted, “Tallie might wake up.”

  “For one so small, Tallie sounds like a herd of elephants coming down the hall. We’ll have plenty of time to cover up.”

  As if to shore up his words, he reached down to retrieve the blanket that had fallen off her onto the floor. Then, he reached behind his head with one hand and pulled off his shirt. It replaced the blanket on the floor. His eyes were darkened and heavy-lidded. Her breath caught in her throat, that earlier tingle burgeoning into a hot flash.

  Dash dropped down on top of her and began to work magic through his kiss. “Make love to me, Naomi. Please. Laying beside you last night and not being able to touch you the way I wanted was the worst torture I could possibly imagine.”

  Despite the joy his words brought, she had her doubts about what they were doing. Making love to him and knowing this wasn’t permanent was the worst torture she could possibly imagine.

  His lips found her neck then the tip of one breast. He sucked her nipple, bare beneath his shirt, through the lithe fabric. Her hands went into his hair in an odd sort of neutralness, not quite pulling him to her but not pushing him away.

  Urgency entered his moves. His hands whipped her panties from under the jersey. She gasped in surprise. The unexpected, bold move caused her heart to pound in her chest. She
fought her shirt down, but he pulled her further down on the couch using her hips for leverage. The placement of his hands prevented her from covering herself. He planted himself between her legs, letting his broad hips push her legs wider. He dropped his weight on top of her, allowing his jeans-covered bulge to press against her bare core.

  She arched involuntarily, groaning in frustration. “Oh my … Dash …” She pushed at his chest.

  “Don’t say no. You want this, too. I can tell by your scent how much you want this. Say yes.”

  He kissed her with abandon, moving both hands to the top of her head and working in deep with his tongue. He ground against her. His erection found her bud and he rocked against it until she began to pant.

  She was close to a climax. Her hips pressed instinctively up into him searching for that release.

  He hummed into her mouth, enjoying her participation. “Say yes, sweetheart.”

  She didn’t respond. Her eyes were closed as she fought what she was feeling. She wasn’t winning the fight.

  Dash grabbed her behind one thigh and opened her more. He gyrated against her, feeling her warmth against the front of his pants. Her thigh trembled beneath his hand. His look of triumph made her want to scream in frustration, but another emotion was taking over her body.

  She got right to the edge and he lifted slightly, separating his hardness from her. She groaned, arching up to get completion.

  “Say yes,” he whispered.

  Her eyes flew to his. He had stopped at that point intentionally. He knew where he’d left her. Of course, he did. He knew her body probably better than she did herself.

  He placed a large hand over her heated core and pressed down. Her hips arched. A long moan eased from her throat. She barely managed to keep it low and controlled. Her head tilted back until her forehead touched the arm of the couch and her chin pointed to the ceiling.

  Dash took advantage of her open neckline to run his tongue along the length of her tiny female Adam ’s apple.

  She shivered.

  “Let me send you over. All you have to do is say yes.”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  He reacted instantly. He leaned his shoulder against the couch and pushed one foot against the floor for leverage. He threw off his belt, undid his pants and shoved them beneath his hips. Freeing himself, he said, “I’m sorry. I can’t wait.”

  He slid into her, seating himself all the way with one shove. Sensing the eruption rising in her, Dash covered her mouth with one hand just before a scream tore from her lips. It fell muffled beneath his hand while her internal muscles spasmed around him.

  He didn’t wait for her to recover. He moved steadily and forcefully, already on the edge himself. Teasing her had only teased him. Everything became frantic in short order. He dipped his head, pressing his mouth against the crook of her neck and shoulder to muffle his own sounds of pleasure.

  Naomi reached down to push his pants a little further down his thighs then grabbed hold of his buttocks. Pulling him tight against her, she rocked up in time with his hard thrusts. He began to tremble. He called out. Increasing his tempo, he hooked a hand over the back of her shoulder and squeezed her tighter.

  He tensed. “Oh … hell …” He grunted and his grip tightened on her shoulder and her thigh. He murmured incoherently against her shoulder. A low sound, almost half whimper, sounded in her ear. At a time when she should be concentrating on the orgasm building in magnificent proportions beneath her pubic bone, she began to worry.

  Dash had never reacted this way before.

  “Dash?”

  He didn’t respond, simply made that odd sound again.

  “Dash, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t … I’ve never …” He tilted her hips up and drilled into her spot.

  She shattered.

  Dash moaned as she spasmed around him again. “Ugh … I need to come. I can’t.” A deep, guttural sound of near torture tore from his throat. “Help me,” he begged.

  “It’s alright, baby. I’m right here.” She caressed the back of his head then coaxed his face around. With light strokes of her tongue, she lured him into a deep sensuous kiss. As his heart rate calmed, she slowed the tempo of her hips to the light rhythm of the kiss. “Relax for me, Talon. Nice and easy, baby. That’s the way.”

  She reached beneath her thigh and took his sac in hand. With gentle fingers, she worked him with slow compressions. She increased the tempo of their coitus gradually back to a driving grind and palmed him tighter. His scrotum contracted in her grip. His release now close.

  “That’s it, baby. Come on. Let go for me.” Her head tilted back and she moaned. “Now.”

  His hips jerked twice as he let go a throaty vocalization of half pleasure, half relief. He held her tight through his completion and began to tremble. He kept his head in her neck and didn’t move. Didn’t say anything.

  Naomi stroked his back, remaining silent while he shivered in her arms.

  He slowly calmed then pushed himself up. “I’m sorry. I’m squishing you.”

  “You’re fine.” She searched his eyes. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m … I’m fine.” He looked at her. His eyes looked haunted.

  “Talon?”

  “Marry me, Naomi.”

  Her heart stopped beating. Did she hear him right? She sat up, pushing him aside. “What?”

  “Marry me.” He pulled her into his lap. “Today has been the best day of my life. You and me and Tallie. I could get used to this family thing.”

  She pulled away from the hand he’d pushed into her hair. She hated to burst his bubble, but she had to clear up the illusion. “We’re not a family. There’s you and Tallie. There’s me and Tallie. And then there’s you and me sharing Tallie. That’s not a family, Dash.”

  He dropped his voice to a caress. “We could change that.”

  He kissed her slow and deep. Making promises with this press of lips and tongue that he’d never made in words.

  “Marry me, Naomi, so we can give Tallie the family she needs. A family where she gets to wake up and find us together every morning.”

  Her heart stuttered. He wanted to make a family for Tallie, but how did he feel about her? He hadn’t said he loved her. Wasn’t that what a man said to the woman he asked to be his wife? Of course, if it was just a marriage of necessity—a way to get Tallie under the same roof as him every day—then he’d didn’t actually need to love her. Did he?

  She pulled away from him. “I’m not an asset for accumulating, Dash. You can’t marry me just so you can wake up with Tallie everyday. I deserve more than that from the man I marry. I deserve more than that from you.”

  She stood. “I think you should go now.”

  Dash stood, too, and pulled up his pants. “Naomi, I didn’t mean—”

  “I can’t marry you, Dash. Well, I guess I could. But I won’t.” She picked up his shirt and belt off the floor. Handing them to him, she said quietly, “I owe my daughter more than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She stepped back. “Good luck this weekend.”

  “Naomi—”

  “Please go, Dash. I really don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She crossed her arms over her chest and cleared her throat of the sadness lodged there.

  He stared at her silently as he threaded his belt through his pants and pulled on his shirt. The hurt in his eyes mirrored that in her heart.

  When he finally walked away and out the door, tears built behind her eyes. Her mind wandered through everything Dash had said about her father. She’d love to give her father back his pain. She was tired of the feelings it evoked in her. She was tired of the wimpy choices those feelings sometimes led her to make—like staying in a relationship with a man you loved, pretending you didn’t love him for fear he’d abandon you if he learned the truth or like writing a kick-ass article about a pro football star raised in foster care finding his long lost twin but not turning it in
.

  She’d told herself she was holding on to the story so she could change Talon’s mind about cooperating and giving her quotations to beef up his side of the tale. In her heart, she knew that was all smoke and mirrors. She’d been holding out on her editor—and possibly jeopardizing her career and Tallie’s security—because she didn’t want Talon to label her as betraying him again. She wanted him to agree voluntarily to let her tell his story.

  He hadn’t reached such generosity of heart. Yet, he could ask her to marry him so he could be with Tallie daily. She let go the tears she’d been holding in. Tears she cried for a proposal she wished had been real.

  Chapter 20

  Dash walked into the locker room after Sunday afternoon’s game in a funk. He’d managed to pull out a win today, but just barely. They’d squeaked by Denver in Mile High Stadium by a slim seventeen to fourteen victory.

  It had been two days since Naomi turned down his proposal and his frustration had been messing with his game. The last two practices still had him off on his passes to Gordon, and the disconnect had continued during today’s matchup. Coach had been riding his butt relentlessly. If he kept this up, they’d be putting Shave back on the field regardless of whether the starter was at one hundred percent or not. Or worse, Coach would bump him down and move up the third string QB. That would be all he needed to make his month complete.

  The team had needed this win today to keep their hopes alive for getting a wild card berth in the playoffs. Now, they needed to wait and see if Seattle could help them out tonight by beating St. Louis. If they did, then all the Griffins had to do was win their next game and they were in.

  Dash peeled off his graphite and gold jersey and headed for the showers. Behind him, he heard Gordon yell at the kicker.

  “Hey, Fulton, nice work. You saved our asses out there with that last field goal. Now, if we could just find us a quarterback, we might be able to ride this horse all the way.”