by Timms, Lexy
“A what?” she asked flatly. It was the most incongruous thing she’d ever heard. He might have said ‘penguin’ for all the sense it made.
“A beard.” He pronounced it bee-ard, drawing out the syllables as though it has some specific meaning.
“Stop shaav-ing then,” she said just as quietly.
Billy shook his head.
Amanda shrugged and watched him.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He pressed a few buttons and showed her the screen.
Beard
Beard is a slang term describing a person who is used, knowingly or unknowingly, as a date, romantic partner (boyfriend or girlfriend), or spouse to conceal one's sexual orientation.
“Oh.” Realization came on her in a rush. “Ohhh! You’re g… you… I mean … oh…”
“Look,” Billy said quietly, “you don’t have a great success rate with secrets, but this one is very important. I shower with a dozen guys. I’m in a very good-old-boy profession. Please, if you’ve ever kept a secret in your life let it be this one?”
“This I can. This is no one’s business but your own.” Hadn’t she thought that briefly about Nate? She smiled at Billy. “All the good ones are, you know?” Amanda couldn’t have sounded more idiotic if she’d tried.
Billy tossed his napkin onto the table. One of the waiters snatched the bill from his companion, much to the muttering of the latter.
“Can we get some to-go containers, please?” Billy called.
The losing waiter tried to snatch the bill back. They fell into the kitchen, arguing.
Amanda needed a moment. To recap the situation. The day. Or whatever the hell she needed. She was a nose in a book kind of girl. There was way too much action for this girl in one day. The man you slept with, and apparently have feelings for, is hooked up with a dominatrix supermodel. The closest thing you have to a friend right now is a 350-pound African-American version of the Hulk crossed with a drag queen. And you are now known as the Bouncing Broncos Girl because your titties tried to fly on camera. What now?
In answer to her internal lament, her phone vibrated in her purse. It was a text message. Warily she extracted the phone, halfway convinced it was about to explode. It’d been that kind of day.
You let my car get towed? Seriously? I know I said you could keep it, but seriously? George.
Who knew? For once she’d called it.
“CHECK PLEASE!” she yelled in the general direction of the kitchen, then turned to Billy. “Do you know where I can rent Casablanca?”
“I have three copies. You can have one.”
Suddenly the ‘Surrender Dorothy’ comment made sense.
Chapter 14
Bogart had just claimed that, “If she can stand it, I can. Play it!” when the phone rang. Amanda paused just before Sam struck up the song. She wanted to hear “As Time Goes By” from the beginning.
It was the land line, the one that went through Nate’s house, the one that never rang unless it was him or Coach Johnson. It was hardly likely either would be calling at 11PM with good news.
“I would like to talk to you. Now,” Nate said as soon as she picked up. “Please.”
She waited, listening to him breathe. “Okay,” she said finally and hung up the phone. She’d kept the clothes on from her dinner with Billy, with the concession of taking off her shoes (sensible and flat, of course). She slipped them back on and thanked Ben and Jerry for their help, setting the remains back in the freezer.
She took a deep breath, trying to still the butterflies in her belly, and walked out of the guest house, shoulders back and head straight. She spent the short walk certain the sprinklers would fire off at any moment. Or there would be a sinkhole that opened under her feet. Actually, she was praying for the sinkhole.
Sadly, the short journey was uneventful and she didn’t need to be spirited away in an ambulance and thus tragically be unable to face him. Damn, I should write romance novels. She took a deep breath and rang the bell.
Nate opened the door a minute later and it occurred to her that she’d not been in the main house yet. He invited her into a cavern of white paint and marble, arching staircases that swooped like angel wings to an upper floor. Awards stood poised on every wall and flat surface.
He led her into a sitting room of sorts and plopped down on a couch that must have cost as much as her parents’ house in The Springs. “Please,” he indicated a chair next to the couch, “have a seat.”
It was like being called into the principal’s office. Or worse, a lawyer who was all smiles and happiness because he’d found a way to hurt you badly. She was hired to tame the wild child, but she’d lost that upper hand somewhere.
Nate handed her a folded newspaper. The sports section.
She cringed. “I’ve seen it.”
“Have you read it?”
“No,” Amanda admitted, studying her nails that she’d somehow bitten down to a point no manicure could save. “Billy just showed it to me.”
“Billy?” Nate sat up. “When did you see Billy?”
Her head shot up. “About an hour ago. We had dinner.”
“Great, that can be in tomorrow’s paper then.” He slumped back on the couch, throwing a pillow across the room for good measure.
“Hey, just because I was hired to keep you out of the papers, which, I may point out to you, I have done…”
Nate stood and waved the paper at her.
“That’s me, not you!” she yelled, yanking the paper from his grip and using it to swat him on the shoulder. Hard.
“READ IT!” Nate yelled back.
Amanda stood up and faced him, the newspaper crumpled in her hand. “You do NOT get to dictate my actions! I’ll live my life as I please, thank you very much!”
“Not when you’re SUPPOSED to be MY girl!”
“Tell that to your supermodel fuck figure! I mean, stick figure!”
“I DID!” Nate yelled. “THAT’S WHY SHE LEFT!”
“WELL FINE!” Amanda screamed back.
Then suddenly there seemed to be a missing piece of awareness, a glitch in her timeline.
One minute she was screaming at Nate, then the next she had both legs wrapped around his waist and her hands in his thick sandy hair and was covering him with kisses while he held her effortlessly, his hands running up and down her spine, under the blouse and to the bra clasp.
She felt the clasp pop and his hand ran along her skin, heating and touching. Caressing her body. She moaned into his mouth and viciously pulled at his shirt. She thought she might have gotten hit by a button, but she wasn’t sure and didn’t care anyway.
His naked, broad chest, and wide shoulders felt as wonderful as she remembered from the beach. She climbed down off him long enough to let him rip her shirt and bra off over her head. Without giving herself much time to think about it, she pushed him back on the couch, falling with him. Her mouth trailed hard, biting, passionate kisses from his nape to his navel before a daring little thought snuck in that left her attacking his belt and tearing open his pants.
She ripped them down, he rose to assist, but her fingers betrayed her need. She left long scratches down his thighs and stared a long moment at the beautiful flesh rising right before her very eyes. Oral sex had been neither desired nor avoided with her; it had never mattered one way or another in the past. She’d been on the giving end only once and the whole thing had left her feeling rather ‘meh’ about it. But with Nate, she had to have him.
She dove right in, mouth eagerly taking, and was surprised at how aroused it left her to feel the weight of him on her tongue. She experimented a little, tasting, sucking, even scraping her teeth along the length of him and discovered that she loved the feel of him. The taste of him left her hungry for more. The experience was like nothing she’d ever experienced before.
He lay back and ran his fingers through her hair and worked her head over his shaft, still hardening, still thickening as she sucked and licked. Her head b
obbed up and down over him as his hands, his strong, warm, huge hands stroked her back and head and shoulders and neck, and even reached around and caressed and stroked her nipples. She moaned, matching his own groan as he swelled even larger. Her jaw began to ache from the sheer width of the man.
Then just when she felt a pulse at the base of the shaft, when she thought he would explode in her mouth, leaving her with the dilemma of pulling away or swallowing—something she had never done before—he pulled her head away and shoved her backwards so that she sprawled on the floor next to the couch, her legs splayed and open to him. She lay there, half dazed, breathing heavily, meeting his eyes with a question, wondering how it was that he was able to stop at this point. Then the question was answered as he dragged her skirt down over her hips, then with one hand grabbed her panties and tore them from her body, shredding them in his grasp. She gasped as her wet pussy was exposed to the chill air.
He moved her over him so she was straddling his mouth, facing away from him, so that his tongue—his oh-so-sweet tongue—could fire into her heat, splitting her open and driving hard and fast into her slit over and over and over. She fell and her head landed on his thigh. His thick cock was there, and she had just sucked it into her mouth when she came.
She spasmed, her thighs pressed against his face. She didn’t know if he could breathe, but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t move as she came and came. She buried her screams around his beautiful cock, opening her mouth and throat with the climax and using him to muffle her cries. She parted her thighs and rose to let him breathe, only to find her own breath blocked by his huge, throbbing shaft. With a shocked laugh, she lifted her head to get some air and saw his toes a million miles away. Not satisfied with the view, she spun as soon as her legs would respond.
Damn, he was amazing.
She stared at him lying there on the floor, naked, erect…an Adonis. He was Michelangelo’s David, hard and eager. She mounted him, sitting tall upon him, sliding his thickness into her heat so that she could ride him. With her hands on his chest, pressing him down, using him to balance, she lifted and fell, then lifted and fell over and over. Her breasts ached from the bouncing, her thighs burned from the exercise she was forcing on them, but he felt so good….so fucking good.
The burn, the aches, all faded or became a part of the mounting climax, the heat, the friction, the stretching of her around him…the chiseled look of him made her arch against the pleasure. Yet another climax started deep in her core.
He called out, wordless, blinded by his own climax. His hands reached up and grabbed her breasts, squeezing, mauling. His shaft throbbed in her, pulsing, and she came. She shuddered around his release, her aching thighs shaking from exertion as her torso bucked and strained under the climax that blinded her to all but a single receding pinprick of light that smelled and tasted and looked like Nate.
She collapsed on top of him, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath, her legs now intertwined with his, her arm holding her pressed to him. He was heaving with the exertion, too.
When she looked at him, he seemed as dazed and glassy-eyed as she felt.
He met her gaze, looking at her there on top of him. Finally, he lifted one hand and took her wrist in his grasp. His fingers swallowed her tiny wrist. He could have caused her pain, could have crushed her wrist, but his touch was delicate. And though he was holding her firmly, he wasn’t holding her at all tightly. If she pulled away now, he’d release her in an instant. Somehow, she knew this.
“Don’t run away,” he said, his voice low, husky. “Not this time.”
Amanda blinked back tears, suddenly overwhelmed. How did one respond to so much naked emotion? Finally, she bit her lower lip and nodded. “Can we move to a bed?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
He stood and helped her to her feet. Her knees seemed still somewhat confused on which way they were supposed to bend. She slipped out of the remnants of what used to be her underwear then reached for his hand.
Why did it have to be so surprising when he took it? She ducked her head, letting her hair fall in a cascade down to cover her burning cheeks.
Now I’m shy?
“You know what the best part of being with a professional athlete is?” he asked, lifting one hand to brush back the errant strands, tucking them gently behind her ear.
She looked up at him. Shook her head in mute response when she couldn’t get her voice to work.
He grinned. This was the Nate Thomas the world knew. That wicked boy/man who could melt your kneecaps with a single smile. He bent close, and whispered the answer in her ear, “Recovery time.”
Almost afraid to look, she let her eyes drop to his waist. Then lower.
“Oh, fuck,” she whispered, her mouth suddenly dry. “You do know that I’m not a professional athlete, right?”
Nate scooped her up in his arms and carried her up the soaring staircase and into his bedroom.
Chapter 15
When she woke, Amanda knew that this time she wasn’t going to be able to slip away like she’d done on the beach. Nate was thoroughly on top of her, legs entwined with hers; his heavy, thick arms were wrapped around her. His head lay on the pillow above hers so her head was nestled just under his jaw.
They’d actually slept that way. It was like she’d tried to catch a falling giant, he covered her so completely. For a moment, she imagined what it would have been like to wake with Billy like this and she shuddered. It would take days before a rescue party would find her under that bulk. No, Nate was just right, big enough to feel… well, to feel completely wrapped up in someone, but not so big as to feel like she would just disappear without a trace.
I still want to hide.
She breathed deeply, a part of her reveling in the moment. The other part was screaming at her that it would be better to slink away. To finish her Ben and Jerry’s and to hear “As Time Goes By” once more. Why would she want to stay for the inevitable awkward morning-after moment, when Nate realized he’d thrown away a supermodel for a super nerd? He was going to do his best to hide his disappointment, she was sure. But it would be there when morning light sobered him up, the way it had with other men when they realized what they’d done, or promised, in the throes of passion.
She didn’t want to see that again. She especially didn’t want to see it in his eyes. Especially not with him. Maybe she could bolt if she was careful. Quiet. She could pack her things and just go… well, somewhere. I could go to the airport and fly away, far away, go see my parents and hide in their basement. She made a mental note to pick up the Casablanca DVD on the way out.
But more than that she wanted… well, she wanted to pee. Very, very badly.
Nate was fast asleep.
The thought crossed her mind of what he looked like when he slept. From here all she could see was shoulder and muscle. She lay there, determined to ignore the ever-pressing need of her bladder. The bathroom was basically at the foot of the bed, a few scant feet away.
Her resolve lasted almost two minutes.
She lifted his arm, carefully, so slowly, and placed it on his hip. Damn, he was gorgeous. She raised up and lifted his leg off hers and slid out from under him, all while holding her breath. She rose as quietly as she could and turned to stare down at him. He was fun to look at, and asleep he looked, if anything, more intense.
She padded to the bathroom and closed the door, stealing a glance at herself in the mirror, seeing the strange woman with tousled hair and soft eyes. No, her bladder wasn’t giving her time for self-recrimination, she had too much pressure built up. When she was done, on the other hand, her bladder didn’t care and allowed her all the time in the world to wallow in her guilt.
Amanda wasn’t even sure who exactly was looking out at her from the mirror when she looked again. There was something of a wild creature in the tangles that framed her face. Her lips were parted slightly, still swollen from a night of passionate kisses. When she turned, she caught a glimpse of a mark on
her neck that had her freeze in absolute shock.
A hickey? He’d given her a hickey?
Somehow that made it all worse.
This oddly ravenous creature who got hickeys, who indulged in wild crazy sex, had to go. Before she did something insane like go back in the other room and start nibbling bits until he woke up just to see if he was up for a round of do-overs. Because, you know, they might not have done it right last night.
No. That wouldn’t do. The part of her brain that had wanted to flee was winning quickly.
She splashed water on her face and tried to comb out her hair with the small plastic comb she found in a drawer, but the bed-head from the night before wasn’t about to be tamed that easily. She tried to comb it with wet fingers, thinking that might work better, and all she got was the beginnings of a headache.
With a sigh and no small amount of trepidation, she turned off the lights and tiptoed back into the bedroom only to stand in confusion when she realized there was no sign of her clothing anywhere. She was kneeling next to the bed, trying to see if anything had perhaps been kicked under there, when she remembered that everything was probably still in the living room.
“You promised you wouldn’t run away this time.”
He didn’t even open his eyes. For all the look of him, he could have been talking in his sleep. She stood there wondering what the odds were that he just so happened to have a dream with those same words at the exact moment that she…
Amanda sighed. Yeah.
She got up and eased back into the bed, lying down beside him in more or less the same position she had been in before. His arm and leg encircled her again and his chin nestled in her hair. Her heart was pounding a million miles an hour. “I was trying to find a blanket,” she whispered after a moment. “It’s cold.”
He released her again. “If you can find it, go ahead.”
She did find one, over on the other end of the room formed into a little nest from the night before. She blushed as she remembered creating that space. She pulled it up over the bed and reluctantly covered his form before lying down again, this time facing away from him.