by Serena Bell
And the irony of the whole thing is? The reason I believed it was because Ty told me I was beautiful and made me believe it.
Chapter 28
Ty
I’m trying to park to meet Zach and Calder at the Met on Monday night, but the parking’s a bear. So I’m cruising up and down First, and of course I’m thinking about Iona. I’m thinking about how after that moment in Julia’s house on Christmas, I’d stupidly hoped things had changed. But on Saturday and Sunday and all this week at practice, it was the same as it had been the two weeks before. Like the two of us were strangers, like none of what we’d shared had actually happened.
I’m thinking about all that, and feeling pretty damn gloomy, when I see her.
At first I see only her. It’s like she’s got a special draw on me, something in her that calls out to something in me, makes me spot this random woman on the sidewalk even though I’m supposed to be scanning for empty spaces. And before I even fully recognize her, my body responds to her: Her. Hot. Want. And then a second later, Oh. Of course. Iona.
A second behind that:
Who the fuck is he?
He’s tall and athletic and blond and I instantly hate him. Twice as much when I realize he has a hand on her back, a proprietary, steering hand. And she isn’t shaking it off. And she’s smiling. Laughing.
Then I’m past them, and I make a quick pass around the block—and then—
Then I’m following them. Tailing them. Watching her walk, the pretty sway of her hips. She’s dressed totally differently than I’ve ever seen her. When I see her, she’s either dressed like a jock or a businesswoman. They’re both sexy, but this—
She’s wearing a raspberry colored dress that fits like a second skin. It’s low cut in front, crisscrossed over her upper back, and it doesn’t make it past mid-thigh.
My mouth waters and my hands tingle, just thinking about all that bare thigh.
Except it’s not mine to touch. It’s his.
I’m spying on a woman who’s on a date. I’m spying on my fucking coach.
I’ve officially lost my mind.
I turn up the next cross street, loop around, and head for the Met. I valet park the car and head inside.
The guys clap me on the back and we order big meat and I try really fucking hard not to say, “I saw Coach Thomas on the way over here.” And fail.
Zach’s face—the kind that shows every emotion—is full of sympathy. “Oh, yeah?”
“She was with some guy.”
“Mark Deflorio,” says Calder. “Julia set her up.”
What the fuck? Does everyone know what’s going on in her life except me? “Who the fuck is Mark Deflorio?”
Zach and Calder exchange glances.
“Former M’s first baseman. Apparently a pretty good guy.”
That just makes everything worse. If she were out with an asshole or some uptight tie-wearing business or law type, I could deal, but a nice-guy athlete—
I should be that guy. I should be the nice-guy athlete with my hand in the curve of Iona’s back. Sliding down to cup her ass, wrapping over her hip to draw her close against me while we walk.
My hand aches at the thought. So do my eyes.
And my mind doesn’t stop there. It takes us all the way back to my place where I peel the dress slowly away from her heated skin…
I can’t sit here and act like I’m not freaking out.
“You guys mind? I’m not feeling well.”
More glances.
“Ty,” says Calder sternly. “Sit the fuck down.”
I’ve somehow found my way to standing. “I gotta—I got something I gotta do.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Calder says. “Seriously, man. This isn’t—she’s not—you gotta watch yourself. This is bigger than your dick.”
“Nothing’s bigger than my dick,” I joke, but it’s just reflexive. I’m barely listening to him, and I’m for sure not in the mood to kid around.
“Be careful,” Zach calls after me, but I don’t look back.
I throw my valet claim at the pimply guy standing just outside and pull my phone out of my pocket.
Where are you?
No answer.
I try not to picture her getting naked with the guy, the raspberry dress thrown over a chair, some purple scrap of satin and lace all that stands between Iona and a huge mistake.
My car comes and I get in it. I don’t know where I’m going. I drive around idly for a while, checking my phone every few seconds.
When it finally comes, I breathe for the first time in what feels like an hour.
I: Heading home. Why?
T: Heard you were on a date.
I don’t feel like pulling punches. I feel like slugging Mark Deflorio, and my anger translates straight to bare and brutal.
I: I was. It’s over.
T: Was it good?
There’s a long hesitation, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far.
Scratch that. I fucking know I’ve gone too far, and I don’t goddamn care.
I: WTF, Ty?
T: Just answer.
Longer pause. The silence goes on so long I turn the car around and head for home. I’ve pissed her off. And rightly. It’s none of my fucking business.
My phone buzzes and I pull over and check it.
I: He wasn’t you.
The shock and pleasure of it sends blood rushing to my dick, but that’s not the real thing. The real thing is the sensation in the center of my chest, like the sun’s come out and it’s radiating heat everywhere. I have to catch my breath before I can tap out my reply.
T: Tell me where you are.
A minute later, she texts me her address.
Chapter 29
Iona
I open the door for him. He steps in and shuts the door behind him. Leans back against it.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I’m not going to touch you,” he says.
I laugh out loud at the absurdity. “Oh. Well, then. Phew.”
“I just want to talk.”
All of a sudden, I’m mad. “You just want to talk. And so you think you can just show up here and we’ll talk.” I cross my arms and glare at him.
For the first time in probably the whole time I’ve known him, his gaze jerks away from mine.
“That’s right, Ty. It might be that easy for you, but it’s not that easy for me. Do you have any idea what you’re doing? I have fought so hard, Ty. To get on the high school football team, I had to go to war. With the coach, the athletic director. The fucking players. There were a few who wanted me, but mostly they didn’t. Do you know what it’s like to constantly feel like you’re one tiny fuck-up away from losing everything you’ve built?”
I’m trembling all over. I want him to leave, before something happens that isn’t supposed to. Before we cross some line that can’t be uncrossed.
But that line has already been crossed.
I didn’t think there was anything in the world I wanted more than this job, but it’s not true.
It’s wrong, though. It’s wrong to throw away everything you’ve worked for on sex, no matter how strong the pull is. And I guess that’s why I’m still talking. That’s what I’m trying to explain to him. That if it’s just sex, if that’s all it is and all it can ever be, he needs to walk away and leave me alone.
If it’s something else—
Meantime, the words keep coming out of my mouth, like if I talk hard enough, I’ll push him away. “College was the same. You feel like, wait, I’ve fought this fight once. I won this fight. Why am I still fighting? And then it was better for a while, because I was playing mostly women’s, but then when I wanted to do the indoor league it was the same shit all over again. Proving myself. Proving myself twice as much as any male player has to. And then here—
“I thought I had everything I wanted. I thought I’d arrived. I thought I’d made it. That everything was safe. And then—and then you just show up here and—”<
br />
“Can I say something?”
I want to tell him no. I want to tell him he already did enough damage. When he kissed me. When he sent those texts. When he stepped through my door.
But I think about the silk boxers and I know this isn’t his fault. This isn’t about fault or who started it or who fired the first shot tonight. And I want to hear what he’s about to say. The way he’s looking at me, so focused and fierce—but it’s not anger. It’s not even sex. It’s something more.
I know this is one of those moments that changes everything.
“Okay,” I say quietly.
“I don’t get jealous,” he says.
At first, his words don’t make any sense to me.
“I didn’t just hear you were on a date. I saw you. With him. I was parking downtown and I saw you walking with him. And I—”
Those eyes. So dark, so intense.
“I wanted to kill him.”
A wave of warmth pours through me. He is jealous. Over me. “Ty.”
My voice shakes. It’s half a plea, half a warning.
“I know. It’s fucked up. I heard every word you said, Iona. I know how hard you’ve worked. I know what this job means to you. And I won’t take that away. So I’ve got no right to be here. Or say any of this. I have no right to tell you I don’t want you to see him. Ever. Again. Or any other guy, for that matter. Except me. But I needed you to know. That’s all. I just—I needed you to know.”
The silence that follows is so deep I hear the refrigerator purring. And the beat of my heart, hummingbird fast.
He turns to go.
“Wait,” I say. “What if—”
I deserve whatever happens to me. I deserve to lose this job. I deserve to be stood up in front of a firing squad of media and trotted out as a betrayer of my gender and race.
I own how bad what I’m about to say is:
“What if you just touch me a little bit?”
He groans.
“Or—you could just tell me what you would do to me if you could touch me.”
The next sound he makes doesn’t even have an actual name. It’s like the sound a big tree makes in a high wind. “Because that wouldn’t be against the rules?”
“Exactly.”
He looks me up and down, and one corner of his mouth turns up. “I’d start by taking that dress off you.”
“Like this?”
I lift the dress slowly from the hem, teasing it upward. His eyes follow, his expression voracious, but he doesn’t move.
I expose the lace of my red panties—sexy ones, because of what I thought was going to happen between me and Mark.
“You wore sexy panties for him,” he says, outrage sharp in his voice.
“I was trying to get you out of my head.”
“How’d that work out for you?” A smirk now. The smirk has fingernails and they’re raking down my back.
“Not so well,” I confess.
“Good,” he says. “Because it worked like shit for me. It’s worked like shit for me from the first moment I saw you.”
I stop the upward hike of the dress, but he says, “Keep going.”
I know what we’re doing is wrong. I know it’s as wrong as if he were the one lifting my dress. But I don’t have the willpower to stop it.
I work the dress as high as my navel, and he strokes a hand over the bulge in his jeans. I feel it clear down into my core, like he’s stroking me.
I cross my arms and slip the dress off over my head, so I’m standing before him in just my bra and panties. Two barely-there slips of red satin and lace. It’s been years since I took off my clothes for anyone else, and even back then, I always wanted the lights off. But with Ty, it’s different. He’s staring at me like I’m the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to him, and I believe the look in his eyes, because he’s taught me to.
I don’t know where to look, at that wild, hungry expression on his face or the flex of his hand as he rocks it over his crotch.
“I’d brush one bra strap down off your shoulder.” His voice is rough.
I lift one hand like he’s got me in a trance and do just what he’s said. The slide of the strap over my skin makes me shiver. The thin lace cup falls away from my breast and my nipple tightens against the cool air and the heat in his eyes.
He groans. “Now the other one.”
I do it—holding his gaze.
“You’re. So. Fucking. Beautiful.”
It pulls a breath out of me, a huff that’s almost a moan.
“Next,” he says, “I’d touch you all over. With just one finger. Or my tongue. So light, you’d go crazy, wanting more.”
I’m already going crazy, wanting more. It’s like I can feel those light touches, even though he’s ten feet away. Maybe it’s the sight of his hand moving back and forth over his denim-clad erection. We’ve kidded around enough about Ty Williams’s junk, but that is an impressive fistful he’s sporting. Makes my throat tight, and I lick my lips.
“Did you just lick your lips?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Care to tell me why?”
“Rub the head,” I say. “With your thumb.”
He makes a noise deep in his throat and obeys.
“Wish I were doing that,” I whisper.
“Wish you were, too.” I watch as he edges the ball of his hand hard against himself, taking my breath away. “Aren’t we already breaking all kinds of rules? Couldn’t you get your ass over here and lend me a hand?”
“I can’t get my ass over there. But I can definitely lend you a hand.” I cup my breast, toying with the nipple. I feel that fine line of pleasure, a tight wire from nipple to core, and I follow it, slipping my own hand down over the curve of my belly to the edge of my panties, and then lower, under.
“Fuuuuck,” he says, his hand speeding.
“Mmm,” I say. “God. I’m wet.”
“Tease.”
“Hush. You’re not allowed to complain. You’re not really here.”
“Oh, I’m here. I’m really, really fucking here.”
“Are you close?”
“Fuck, yeah. Are you?”
“Yeah,” I say, and then—oops—“Ohhhhhh.”
But he’s coming, too, his head thrown back and his knees bent, groaning his release.
And then he crosses the space between us and he’s kissing me.
Chapter 30
Ty
Iona’s mouth is so fucking soft. Her whole body melts against mine, like what we just did together took all the starch, all the sass out of her. But she’s not limp, either. She kisses me back like it matters. Like it means something.
I’m half a second from scooping her up and carrying her into her bedroom when she stiffens. I can feel the exact second when she remembers who we are and that we’re not supposed to be doing this.
And it feels like getting a bucket of ice water dumped on my head. All the good feelings—not just the brain chemicals from coming so hard, but how damn sweet it feels to hold her afterward, how plain old fucking perfectly she fits in my arms, how satiny her skin is against mine—get doused. And we’re just—us. Standing there, space opening between us, arms slowly dropping to our sides, hands fisting, shoulders coming up, reality sinking in.
Shit.
I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to deal with it if she says she can’t do this.
“I guess there are some things you can’t fight,” she says. With a funny little half-grin.
Relief sweeps through me.
“When you were little, did you ever try to dam up a stream? But no matter how hard you work, no matter how fast you build, the water finds a way around? And when it does, it always comes in a rush and washes everything away.”
“Yeah,” I say. It’s inadequate, because I know what she’s talking about and it deserves better words than my feeble agreement, but that’s what I’ve got right now.
She takes a breath. “That’s what this feels like. Like I p
ut up every bit of resistance I had. I blocked you out and you crept in and swept me away anyway.”
Something shifts, uneven terrain settling, in my chest. I smooth my thumb over the arch of one of her eyebrows, draw her face close to mine again, and kiss her. Softly. For a long time.
“I’m a football player,” she says, when I release her. “Footwork is important. I always have my feet on the ground where they’re supposed to be. Things don’t just knock me over.”
Me neither, I think. I open my mouth to say it, but before I can, she says, “I need time to think. Can you give me that? I’m not saying no. I’m not running away. I just—I need time to think.”
I want to say, Fuck no! Thinking never got anyone anywhere good.
But her eyes are pleading with me, and there’s so much going on in my head and my gut that I can’t get it all straight. My mind’s still gummy from coming so hard and I want to say yes to her because I always want to say yes to her. It’s funny to think about how way back a million years ago when I first met her (because that’s what it feels like), I wanted to buck her off like a rookie jockey. And now I just want to say, If that’s what it takes…
She picks up her dress from where it lies, crumpled, on the floor. “Tomorrow night. We’ll talk tomorrow night. I just need to sleep on it. Think about it. Figure out—what’s happening and what it means and what I need to do about it.”
I shake my head. “You don’t need to do anything about it. You can just let it happen.”
“Can I? You make it sound so simple. You’re a man, and a football player. I’m a woman, and a coach. And even though technically I’m the boss of you, I’m the one who stands to lose the most.”
And I know that from the angle she’s looking at it, she’s right. Even with Coach having put me on notice, the way I’m playing now, I’m the golden cow. That’s the thing about the PFL. When you’re playing like shit, nothing can save you, and when you’re playing like I am, nothing can touch you.
When Dave Brogan made it me or him, the Grizzlies chose me. And Iona and I both know it would happen that way again.
It makes me so angry for her.