by Teagan Kade
I draw back and stare at Leroy. I level with him, despite him having a good foot on me in stature. “Is he drinking? In the locker room?”
“Last I saw…”
I’m fuming so much it’s a wonder smoke isn’t billowing out of my ears.
“Is Kieran with him?” I demand.
“Whoa, Jo, don’t shoot the messenger.” Leroy raises his hands in the air like a perp facing an armed cop. “And yes, he is.”
All of a sudden, an exhaustion that feels like it’s been accumulating for millennia blankets over me. I’m tapped out.
“Thanks for letting me know,” I tell Leroy before stomping off to the hotel.
It’s been hours since my last meal. As a nutritionist, I know better than to stay this long without eating, but I can’t work up an appetite. So I won’t. We’ll eat when we’re on the road, which might be later tonight or might be tomorrow. Who the hell knows anything anymore? I’ll text Coach Allen or one of his assistants later to find out. For now, I just need some good ol’ fashioned wallowing.
And maybe some ice cream if I can find any. Or arrange for some to be brought to me.
Hmm…
Planning for a little R&R injects some spirit back into me. I take a long, hot shower, change into my favorite pajamas, and turn the AC on as low as it’ll go. I crawl under the sheets, grateful to have thought ahead and brought my biggest, baddest comforter along. The weight of all of those layers on top of me in this Siberia I’ve turned my room into brings me some much-needed peace and calm.
When I finally settle on which movie I want to cozy up to tonight (The Princess Bride—that’s the only right choice in any situation, ever, no room for arguments or dissent), I hear a knock at the door.
My heart races. I really don’t want to be anyone’s security blanket today. And I absolutely do not have the bandwidth to put out any fires, either.
With rising trepidation, I climb out of my little nest. Something tells me it’s Baylor. It has to be. There’s no one else who’ll come darken my doorstep at this hour and under these circumstances. I bet Rachel has done yet another thing that’s got him worked up and he’s seeking me out to do something about it. Because he can’t, and he feels powerless, and his only hope since he can’t control that whole situation with her is that maybe I’ll have a solution to offer up.
But I don’t. Like I said before, I’m all tapped out.
I steel myself and mentally prepare to boot whoever is on the other side of the door out.
The person knocks again.
I whip the door open. “Jeez, I’m—”
It’s Kieran.
My jaw hinges open and I imagine I look like a drooling idiot, but I can’t help myself. It’s pretty safe to say I was not expecting him.
Here.
Now.
“What—”
He silences me with a kiss.
I break away. “Should we be doing this?”
“Shouldn’t we?”
He’s so close to me. And good God he smells so good—woodsy and fresh and just man.
“I—” This time I cut myself off because I’m not sure how to articulate what I want to say. I sigh. “I’m tired of fighting this.”
“I’m tired of pretending I don’t want you.”
He cups the back of my head and pulls me in for another kiss. Not a peck, not a light smooch, but a full-on, lusty, knee-wobbling, full bodied kiss, and he comes at it like a football player approaching a tackle. I have to hold on to him, tight, or else I fear the force of it will bowl me over.
And goddamn if I don’t return his kiss with that same intensity. I let it all out, let every emotion that’s festering inside me pour out of me like a sieve. We embrace, one of his arms wrapped around my waist, the other creeping up, tracing my body, until he reaches my hair, weaves his hand through, and tangles his hand in.
I part my lips, deepening our kiss. It feels like we’re in the eye of a hurricane, a whirlwind surrounding us in every direction. I’m getting vertigo, but I don’t stop. I succumb to my most primitive drives, allowing nature to take over in full.
I had no idea how much I wanted this, exactly like this, until right now. For all the times I yearned for this exact scenario to play out before, they all pale in comparison to the desire burning in me now.
No, not desire.
Need.
I need him.
Kieran trails kisses from my mouth, traveling along my jaw, down my neck, until he’s at my cleavage. I watch, the hot space between my thighs throbbing as he draws closer to my breasts.
“Joey,” he whispers, and it’s like he’s hit a new high note in this symphony of ours.
I’ve got a literal heaving bosom and for some reason I’m breathless, but I don’t even entertain the thought of stopping.
Not now.
Come hell or high water, I want Kieran, here in this very moment. All of him.
Every last, aching part of him.
And no one’s taking that away from me.
I pull him by the collar of his shirt, dragging him inside the room and pushing him in the direction of the bed. He opens his mouth to say something but this time I cover it with my own, lavishing kiss after kiss on him until he forgets whatever it is he wants to say and gets busy with the only thing I need for him to do right now: take me.
I kick the door closed and bite my lip, anticipation rising hot and heady. We fumble our way toward the bed, hands scrambling all over each other’s body.
“Here,” Kieran says, lifting me like I’m a feather.
“Mm,” is all I have to say in return. I wrap my legs around his hips, pressing my crotch to his cock. He’s already hard as a rock, and the feel of him against me, even if there are still too many layers between us, causes a languid moan to roll off my tongue.
Kieran tosses me onto the bed. The lights are off, so it’s only the moonlight coming in through the window, and the backlight from the TV, that illuminate us.
It’s unexpectedly perfect.
He backs away from the bed and I start to protest, but then the metal of his belt buckle reflects the light back onto me and I realize he’s tearing his clothes off. He peels his shirt, his jeans, his socks, all of it off, until he’s down to his boxers.
In the dim lighting I can make out a hazy outline of his physique. There’s no such thing as unflattering lighting when it comes to Kieran. Even in the darkness, his athletic physique is palpable.
He’s built like a sex god and he knows it.
And I love that I get to enjoy it all to myself.
I get on my knees and crawl to the edge of the bed right as he’s about to climb on. I put my hand up, blocking him. I want him to stand. He shoots me a quizzical glance, but I proceed to run my hands all over his torso, feeling his abdomen with my fingertips. His muscles are bulged and firm. Like any athlete, he doesn’t have a sliver of hair anywhere on him. His skin is smooth and just—
Oh, sweet Jesus.
I can’t take it anymore. I yank his boxers down, exposing his cock, thick and ready. There’s just enough light for me to see the hunger in Kieran’s face, the lust in his eyes. I briefly debate whether to draw it out and tease him or to go for the kill, but the truth is, I don’t have a choice.
I want him.
I lick his cock, lifting the shaft up to give me better access to his balls. I don’t want to miss a spot, so I kiss, tuck, reach, and cup until I’ve moistened every last inch of his manhood. I take his balls in my mouth, humming while I do so. His cock twitches and pulsates. A pearly drop of pre-cum fills his slit, soon swiped away by the tip of my tongue.
I take the head of his cock in my mouth. It takes Kieran by surprise because he gasps and gently nudges forward, wanting me to take more.
So I do.
Inch by glorious inch, his cock fills my mouth. Prior to this, I didn’t know I can deep throat, so that, too, comes as a well-timed surprise. The head of his sex presses against the back of my throat. I start bobbing
up and down, licking and sucking him in an increasing rhythm, using my hands to jerk the shaft whenever enough of it is exposed.
“Fuck,” Kieran groans. “Fuck, Jo, that feels so fucking good.”
You taste so good, I want to tell him.
But I don’t want to stop. I flick my tongue where the skin of his shaft meets his glans, right where he’s most sensitive. He bucks against my mouth. Both of his hands come down and twine into my hair, holding my head still as he thrusts, face-fucking me with wild abandon.
It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced.
“Fuck,” he roars.
I think he’s about to come, but then he stops. Abruptly.
If I thought the look he gave me earlier was full of hunger and lust, I stand corrected. It’s the way he looks at me now that’s the definition of raw, primal need. My pussy clenches as our eyes meet. A couple of beats pass and then Kieran is wrangling me, pushing me up on the bed and flat onto my back. My hands join the frenzy, fingers hooking on the elastic of my pajamas shorts. I take them off in one fell swoop, not bothering with discretion or playful, deliberate stripping.
The only thing I can think about is his cock buried deep inside me.
I pull my shirt off, exposing my breasts. My nipples are puckered and firm. When the cold air touches them, it feels like a caress. More temptation.
Kieran wastes no time. His hands find my breasts, cup them, and he squeezes. I let out a soft sigh. I lean my head back, letting it rest on the pillow. I want to savor this moment. It’s like we’re suspended in air. So much goes unspoken, like how we’re about to do this, do it for real, and the anticipation is freakin’ intoxicating.
He takes a moment to sheath himself, my heart steadily attempting to thud its way out of my body.
He readies himself between my legs… and pushes inside me.
That first thrust, the one that fills me up and stretches me so good, is the hottest thing I have ever felt.
I didn’t know my body was capable of experiencing this much pleasure.
Jesus fucking Christ, I could die happy.
“Oh, God,” I moan.
I open my eyes wide and grab him, pulling him in for a kiss. There’s a ball of warmth growing in the pit of my stomach, a kind of sinfully delicious pleasure that radiates pure, euphoric ecstasy from my core to my chest, down my legs, back up to the tips of my fingers.
Kieran groans and kisses me harder. Our bodies melt into one. He speeds up. I’m so wet he slides in and out without restriction. I cry out as the wave of bliss becomes a tsunami. I’m right there on the edge. The slightest breeze would push me over, to the release I so desperately need.
“I’m going to… come,” I manage to say. My voice is raspy. Husky. It comes out jagged.
Kieran pounds into me one last time. He roars out and his entire body tenses. I feel the explosion of his orgasm, a single, powerful pulse of his cock, and like a chain effect, I erupt. It’s like a million teeny tiny fireworks going off all over my body. I yell out, my fingers digging into the mattress. My toes curl from the whiplash.
I’ve never come so hard in my life.
Kieran rolls beside me, his cock slapping against his chest, condom full. He’s out of breath but still manages to give me a heart-wrenchingly gorgeous smile.
“Woman,” he starts. Pants. “How did you do that?”
I give him a half-smile, half-smirk. “What?”
“You’re some kind of magic,” he tells me.
And if I could bottle the moment, I would.
In a single, heated heartbeat.
CHAPTER TEN
KIERAN
Joey is still deep in slumber next to me when I wake up in the morning. It’s the ball-shrinking, freezing-tundra cold that has me up at the ass-crack of dawn. I groan when I check the time and discover it’s not even six. I turn the temperature up to a range that’s tolerable to normal people and can actually sustain human life. Joey seems to be vaguely aware. She stirs a bit, so I stop fidgeting with the thermostat. Soon after, she’s back to snoring.
Loudly.
It’s adorable, even if the sound does give a wood chipper a run for its money.
I want to lounge around and enjoy this—the nebulous and hard-to-define this that encompasses whatever magic it is that exists when reality is confined to the two of us.
But I know I can’t.
Last night I basically told her to worry about the after when the time came.
Well, tomorrow is here.
Goddamn it.
I wish I didn’t feel like a criminal. I wish I didn’t feel guilty at all. I wish I could simply relax and bask in the afterglow of having just had sex with this crazy gorgeous woman that’s still in bed.
But I do feel like a criminal. Like a slimy low-life that goes behind people’s backs and does things without thinking them through.
I don’t have words to fully express just how much of a jackass I am.
Not because there’s any guilt or shame or regret. I don’t regret a goddamn thing.
It’s that now I’ve finally had a taste of what being with Joey is like—in colorful, blissfully graphic detail—I know there’s no going back. This isn’t a one-time thing, not in a million fucking years, and I won’t stay away from her anymore.
But I will need to tell Baylor. Until I do, there’ll always be this little imp of the mind telling me I’m a shitty friend.
And the worst part is that there isn’t a good time to tell Baylor about it. That’s the real kicker, actually. I have no idea how to even start paving the way to get to this particular conversation.
One thing is clear: I can’t be here until Joey wakes up. I need to take advantage of the fact no one’s noticed my absence. At least no one’s blown up my phone, which is a good sign.
I need to keep it that way.
Quietly, I put on my clothes. I take one last look at Joey, which is enough to make me rethink my entire plan. In the span of a heartbeat, I flip flop between wanting to climb back in bed and stay with her and what I need to do, which is to leave.
It seems the cold light of day has restored the part of me that gives a fuck about what’s right and what I want to do.
So I slip out, closing the door tightly behind me.
The next several hours are a blur. Coach Allen bangs on every door—all conveniently located on the same floor so we can all hear him and the tornado he brings when he’s on a warpath.
“You ladies better get your asses out of bed and inside that bus. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes and I don’t give a dead rat’s rotting ass if any of you get left behind,” he barks as he stalks up and down the corridor.
You can tell he used to be a sergeant in the military. He did used to coach for the Patriots, so there’s that, and hey, those guys win fucking everything.
Leroy and a few other guys on the team—Desmond, Randy, Michael, and James—start to haul the luggage down to the lobby. I join them shortly after, hoping I’ll spot Joey, or hell, even Baylor in the shuffle. No such luck.
Finally, when it’s time to go, we file into the bus. That’s when I see the two of them, already inside and occupying the last row of seats. I hurry to grab a place near them.
“Dude,” Baylor says. He’s still groggy. There are bags sagging under his sunken eyes. He looks like death. Like the concept of sleep is as foreign to him as aliens dropping out of the sky. “Where were you?”
“In my room,” I say, perhaps too quickly.
“You missed an epic time,” Baylor says with a self-satisfied smirk.
I’m less concerned about that than I am about the fact Joey doesn’t look my way once.
“Yeah?” My mind is a thousand miles away.
“Yeah, but whatever,” Baylor says. He swats the air like he’s hand-waving the subject away. “I wanted to apologize for yesterday. And for the day before. And for how much of an asshole I’ve been lately.”
Wow, alcohol kills germs and purifies the mind? Who would ha
ve guessed?
“It’s okay, man,” I reassure him. I look at him as I say it because I want him to see that I mean it. There are no hard feelings. No resentment. Mostly, there’s just enough worry to give even a catatonic patient anxiety for the rest of their lives. “I just want you to be happy. That’s all I ever meant when I said… You know, everything.”
“I know.”
Someone cranks up the volume to a speaker. Hip hop blasts in the bus. Baylor bobs his head along to the beat and starts dancing in his seat. It’s silly enough to get a tiny, microscopic smile from Joey, who then promptly returns to her thousand yard stare out the window.
“I’m glad you approve of Rachel,” Baylor adds. He glances at Joey. “What would a guy do without the blessing of his best friend and his baby sis?”
Joey acknowledges Baylor’s assertion with a vague nod, though she doesn’t look at either one of us. I flash him a wan, unconvincing smile that somehow seems to work on him. There’s no fucking way I’m going to contradict him right now and open the Pandora’s box of a best friend scorned while we still have hours to go on the road.
One more thing to deal with at an unspecified later date.
Baylor gets up to use the bus lavatory. When he returns, he takes a seat across the aisle from Joey. I almost ask him why but then he leans against the window and I realize it’s to have a surface to prop his head up while he sleeps. He dozes off in approximately five seconds.
Relief floods my system.
I slide into the seat next to Joey and smile at her.
To my astonishment, she doesn’t react.
“Joey?” I whisper. “Hey?”
“Hey,” she says softly. “Good morning to you.”
“Good morning. Hey, about this morning—”
“Forget it,” she snaps.
I furrow my brow. “What? Joey, look at me.”
“Last night was a mistake,” she says flatly. Still not looking at me.
I’m at a loss for words. She bends down to the floor, rummages through her bag, and fishes a tattered paperback out from inside. She cracks it open, settles into her seat, and starts reading. Just like that.
Silently, I get up and go find another place to sit.
I have no fucking idea where this ice wall has come from.