“You pretended you didn’t know who I was,” Gun says with a smile. “But it was almost a genuine sort of pretense, wasn’t it? You didn’t plan it that way. It was an innocent act of deception. I’ve had women pretend like they don’t give a shit about who I am, maybe even don’t know who I am. But it’s always manufactured and fake. This wasn’t manufactured. It wasn’t fake. This was you. Mixed up. Turned around. But somehow determined and single-minded, like you know what you want and you’re gonna stumble forward until you get it. You’re scared but still bold enough to charge ahead. Trembling in your heels but standing up tall and strong. Asked repeatedly to leave but you’re still here. You’re still fucking here, Little Miss Quilter.” He pauses and takes a long, slow breath, his gaze washing over me. He takes his time looking me over from head to toe, taking in every curvy inch of my blue-clad body. I can see his chest move, sense movement in his pants, feel my wetness flow as I want to feel guilty and ashamed but can’t, just can’t.
I blink as his musky, masculine scent comes to me. He’s freshly showered, I can tell, but that can’t hide his natural aroma, the smell of his essence, the smell of a man.
The smell of my man, comes the thought from that secret place inside me, and I close my eyes and shake my head as I think back to everything that led me here, led me to this moment where I’m standing face to face with Grant Gunner, Grant “The Gun” Gunner, the man, the myth, the hero, the obsession . . .
The obsession of a little girl.
I almost choke on my next breath as I finally allow my mind to travel back to my isolated existence growing up in Pennsylvania Amish country even though we weren’t Amish. No phones. No TV. No real contact with the outside world. A little girl growing up alone. Loved but alone. Always alone. Alone with her imagination. Alone with her once-upon-a-times . . .
And once upon a time that little girl finds a crinkled, half-torn copy of Sporting Illustrated while picking up litter from near County Road 46, and on the cover, bare-chested and tattooed, that cocky grin lighting up his young, smooth face, those clear blue eyes looking right into hers, is Grant Gunner, the fresh-faced, hotshot quarterback picked first in the college draft.
That young Gale didn’t know who he was. She just knew he was hers in that innocent way little girls decide they’re going to marry their best friend in kindergarten. She tore that cover off and hid it in the secret pocket sewn into her frock. And every night she looked at that picture before going to bed. Every morning she cheerfully looked into his blue eyes again and whispered, “Good morning!” It was childish, of course. Silly, for sure. And eventually it was left behind as that little girl grew up and became a smart, sensible woman.
Left behind, I think as those images of my younger self float through my mind as if I’m watching someone else, someone I don’t know but still familiar in that odd, melancholic way. Left behind but not forgotten.
I’m still reeling from that memory as Gun slowly walks towards me, and it’s only when his shadow falls over me like a cloud that I realize he’s right here, in the flesh, older now, that fresh young face lined with experience, hardened by both victory and defeat. But those blue eyes are the same. Those blue eyes still blaze with the fire that burned its way into that little girl’s innocent dreams. It didn’t seem possible when I got the call from the Wilburs, who were looking for a quilter, of all things. It didn’t seem possible, but here we are. Here I am.
And you know what?
I’m not turning away.
I’m not turning away from this.
From whatever this is.
From whatever I am.
And what am I? A childish dreamer? A grown woman who’s never been touched, never been in love, never really grown up? Am I a woman or a child? Am I princess or a whore? Who am I? Who the hell am I?
“You’re mine,” he says to me like I was talking out loud. His face is so close I can feel his breath on my forehead, and it warms me down to my toes. “That’s why you came here. And that’s why you’re still here. You’re mine, Gale. You’re mine. Do you understand?”
I’m almost in tears, I’m so turned around by what’s happening. I just shake my head as I try to hold back a sob that’s just pure disbelief. “No,” I say, blinking as I tell myself this can’t be happening, that fairy-tales aren’t real, that childish dreams don’t literally come true.
Gun touches my hair, his big hands trembling like the same strange, nostalgic emotion is surging through him. I look up into his eyes and can see it, see that misty, faraway look like he’s being transported back in time too, maybe back to that exact time when a little girl found a picture of a blue-eyed prince in the woods and decided he was hers, hers alone, hers always, hers forever.
“My little sister died the day before I was drafted into the league,” Gun says softly, his breath teasing a wisp of hair away from my forehead. “She went peacefully, in her own room, lying in her unicorn-and-princess bed, all of us around her.” He takes a breath, swallowing hard and closing his eyes for a long moment. “But before she left us she pulled me close, whispered something to me, something I’ve never told anyone, something I never even took seriously.” He blinks and then snorts, looking away for a moment and shaking his head. “But maybe some part of me did take it seriously. Maybe that’s why I never let a woman get too close to me, never let a woman into my heart, always held back like I was holding out for something, for someone, for a promise made by a delirious, dying little girl.”
I just blink up at Gun as a chill runs through the length and breadth of my body, from my fingers to my toes, my hair to my heels.
“You have to understand that my sister was confined to hospital rooms for most of her life,” he says through that trembling smile. “She was a reader—fairy tales about princes and princesses and all of that girly bullshit. She never had a chance to have a boyfriend, to fall in love, to even go on a date, and she totally fell for that fairy tale about there being one special person for everyone. She’d always shake her head and sigh whenever I had a new girlfriend in high-school or when she heard the latest rumor about me from college. She told me I was wasting my time, that every person has one true partner and I’d never find happiness until that woman walked into my life.” Gun takes a breath and shakes his head again. “And that evening, just before sunset, as she faded away, my little sis whispered to me that she saw my princess, my partner, my woman,” he says. “She saw her as a vision in blue, standing in a cloud, a cloud of pure white, like blue sky breaking through mist in the morning.” Gun pauses again, glancing slowly down along my curves, my body, my . . . dress? “A woman dressed all in blue,” he says. “Surrounded by white mist. White steam. She saw you, Gale. She saw this. She saw us.”
I almost faint as I feel the steam from the showers swirling around my ankles, rising up around us like a cloud, a white cloud, pure white like mist in the morning.
“So I’m the first woman dressed in blue that you’ve seen in the last twenty years?” I say, trying to laugh it off even though that chill is taking over my body from the inside, making me shudder but with heat and not cold.
“The first one who’s gotten my attention like this,” he whispers, taking another step until he’s almost up against my body, his broad, heavy frame making me feel tiny even though I’m not a small woman. “The only one who’s gotten my attention like this.”
He touches my hair again as he brings his lips close, and I almost swoon as I wonder again what’s happening. Is this real? Is this a trick? Is he just playing me? Am I just playing myself? Allowing myself to fall hook, line, and sinker for a smooth-talking player who’s just telling me what I want to hear? Yeah, I read that he lost his sister when he was a teenager. And yes, there was no mention about him dedicating every game to her, so maybe that really was a secret. But a vision from a dying girl? A prophecy? Really? Are you really gonna—
But my wild thoughts just explode into no
thing, because Gun is kissing me. He’s kissing me gently but firmly, full on the lips, without hesitation, without doubt, like I’m his, like he’s mine, like this is real, like this isn’t a game, isn’t a trick, isn’t a dream. And as I feel my lips open for his, feel his warm mouth against mine, his tongue swirling against mine like they’re playing with each other, I’m suddenly sure this isn’t a trick—or if it’s a trick then he’s been tricked too. Maybe we’ve both been tricked by old memories that have been brought to light by coincidence, just pure chance, dumb luck.
Coincidence, chance, luck . . . I think as Gun draws back and runs his rough finger down my smooth round cheek, making me tremble, making me shake, making me shiver. Isn’t that what fate is? Coincidence? Chance? Luck?
“You’re bleeding,” I whisper absentmindedly as we break from the kiss just so we can breathe. I touch his thick lip, run my finger along the part where it’s bruised and broken. He just smiles and kisses my finger, sending a tingle through me as I look into those blue eyes, the image mixing with that innocent girl’s memory in the most intoxicating way, like that girl clung to her innocence until it was time for her to become a woman, a woman who’s staring into the eyes of her dream, the face of her fantasy, the promise of a future that seemed impossible.
“Well, you’d better kiss it and make it better then,” Gun whispers, his grin widening as his cut opens up again. “Come here, Little Quilter.”
He cups my face in his big hands, and I go up on tiptoes as I gently kiss his lip. The taste of his blood is like a drug, and my eyelids flutter as he slides one hand down along the curve of my back until he’s rubbing my ass and slowly grinding his cock against my crotch. Soon he’s kissing me full on and deep, harder and with a passion that I can feel rising like the steam from the showers. Both his hands are on my ass now, and I shudder as goosebumps pop all over my skin and tremors invade my flesh from the inside out.
Gun reaches down and slides my dress up over my ass, making me gasp as I feel the warm air swirl around the back of my thighs, the round of my buttocks. My panties have ridden up into my crack, but it doesn’t matter because a moment later Gun’s firmly gripped the waistband and torn them off me until they’re useless shreds of wet satin that hang for a moment between my thick thighs before dropping to the floor.
“Fuck, you’re making me so damned hard,” he growls, kissing me harder as he grips my ass and just lifts me off my feet like I’m a doll. I instinctively wrap my legs around his waist and hang on to his neck, feeling his erection standing straight out under my naked crotch.
He’s so thick and hard it feels like his cock can support my entire body weight, and I whimper as Gun moves me back and forth over his shaft as his erection somehow gets bigger, harder, until I feel him throbbing between my legs, feel my wetness flow out of me onto him in the sickest, most beautiful way. He kisses me furiously again, digs his fingers into my buttocks, spread my rear cheeks wide and runs those rough fingertips along my crack as I groan and taste his blood in my mouth, feel his manhood between my legs, smell his musk in the air.
“I want you,” he says in a gasping whisper, breaking from the kiss and nuzzling my cheeks, licking my neck. “I want you now. For myself. All of you, Gale. I’ve never felt this kind of need, this kind of desperation to possess a woman, claim her, make her mine.”
“Is that what you say to all the women?” I whisper back, even though I can see the hunger in his eyes, feel the need in his touch, hear the truth in his voice. Maybe this is part of the clueless innocence that comes from my inexperience, but all that stuff I read about the women in Gun’s life means nothing, like I know I’m his in a way none of them ever were.
“There are no other women,” he mutters as he carries me across the empty locker room to a large table topped with warm hardwood. He sits me down on the table and looks at me with a sincerity I can’t deny, an openness I can’t doubt, a confidence that I suddenly understand comes from Gun’s own childlike innocence, an innocence he clung to in his own way, just like I did. “There never were any other women, Gale. Just placeholders in my story until you walked into my life, walked in like a fucking dream, a vision in blue, standing in a cloud of white mist. Sis was right. That little brat was right, God bless her soul. I know she’s watching, laughing in glee, clapping her hands in delight.”
“Um, I hope she’s not watching,” I say, looking down at myself and gasping as Gun squeezes my breasts so hard my eyes almost pop out of my head. I’m sitting on the table with my blue dress pushed up around my waist, my thighs spread, legs still wrapped around Gun’s tight body, panties long gone.
“Don’t they have sex scenes in those Disney Princess cartoons?” Gun says, his blue eyes narrowing and then flicking wide open as he pulls the straps of my dress down off my shoulders and my big boobs pop into view like they’re trying to jump out of my beige bra. “Oh, fuck, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life,” he groans, letting out a trembling breath as he kneads my breasts, circling my nipples with his thumbs until I feel them harden to points under his touch. “Oh, fuck, you little quilter. Oh, fu—”
“Language,” I mutter, smiling even as I shiver from the way my nipples are responding to his rough touch. “There’s really no reason to use—”
But then I can’t speak. And Gun isn’t speaking either, because he’s pushed my bra up over my boobs and is sucking my right nipple with such force I almost pass out. He pinches and plucks at my other nipple as he sucks and slurps like a hungry animal, and when his other hand goes between my thighs, his fingers sliding through my brown feminine curls and finding my clit, I lean my head back and scream as I suddenly come, violently and with a force that rocks my body, the orgasm roaring in out of the blue, out of the mist, out of the woods I wandered through alone as a child, a crinkled picture of a blue-eyed prince tucked into my secret pocket.
The next few moments are a whirlwind as Gun flicks my clit, sucks my breasts, runs his fingers up and down the throbbing lips of my wet slit, making me come again and again, my climaxes pouring in like the rain, rising to a crescendo and then breaking into a steady thrum of pure ecstasy until I don’t know if I’m laughing or crying, screaming or sighing, coming or dying. When I open my eyes I see Gun’s handsome face in front of mine, and when I feel his weight on me I realize that I’m flat on the table now, my dress long gone, my bra useless just like my panties, my defenses broken down, my life turning into that dream I don’t want to wake up from.
“Is this really your first time?” he says to me softly, and I blink and look away, wondering if I ever answered his crude question about if I’d ever “done” the f-word.
I nod, not sure if I’m embarrassed or excited. I’m almost thirty, and by now I’m so used to being alone that I’m pretty comfortable with it. Yes, that part of me that believed I was holding out for something or someone was still alive, but for all my anxiety issues, losing my virginity wasn’t something I dwelled on or obsessed about. Is that because I knew that my blue-eyed prince would come into my life when it was time? Or had I just given up?
“Mine too,” Gun says with a grin, and I frown when I look into his eyes and see that although he’s making a wisecrack, there’s also an odd seriousness in those blue diamonds that are staring right into my soul.
“Yeah, right,” I mutter, sighing and then gasping when I look down along my body and see that he’s naked and poised to enter me. It takes me a moment to process how big he is, how hard, how thick, and I shudder when I see a thick drop of pre-cum ooze from the massive bulb of his cockhead. “I’m not an idiot. I know how to read.”
“Then read my eyes,” he whispers, slowly reaching between us and lining up his cockhead with my slit, massaging my opening until my wetness flows anew, coating my entrance as my clit throbs in anticipation. “Tell me I’m lying.”
I blink as he slowly pushes himself an inch into me, just enough to open me up, just enough to make
me shudder again. Again I wonder if he’s playing me, telling me what I want to hear. I don’t know that much about football, but I read something about how a quarterback is a master deceiver when it comes to his eyes. A defender looks at the quarterback’s eyes to figure out where he’s going to throw the ball, and a great quarterback knows how to fake out the defender with just his eyes.
Gun holds himself above me, his muscles rippling, his cock an inch into me, those eyes looking into mine like he’s waiting for something, waiting for permission, waiting for me to nod my head once more and say yes, I want this. I study his face, look at the scars from the hits he’s taken, the lines on his forehead from years of being in the sun. From the back of my mind comes a whisper of a warning that I’m being played by a master player, that when this is over it’ll be the last I ever seen of this man, that my blue-eyed prince will turn out to be a frog in the end, hopping away to the next pond after he gets what he wants.
But Gun is still looking into my eyes with a sincerity that’s slowly breaking me. He could be all the way inside me by now, done and finished if he wanted. I can feel how hard he is, sense how heavy and full he his, how close he is to exploding into me. Still he waits. Still he asks. Asks me to believe him. Like it matters if I believe him. Matters to him as much as it matters to me—maybe even more.
It’s only now that I realize that Gun is an inch inside me and there’s nothing separating us. No clothes. And no condom. Ohmygod, is that what he means when he says it’s his first time too? Is that what he means?!
He nods gently like he can see that I’ve understood, that I’ve understood how meaningful this is to him, that in a way this really is the first time he’s been inside a woman.
And then I close my eyes and nod, wrapping my arms around his thick, muscular neck and letting his weight push his manhood into me, deep into me, slowly and surely, opening me up for the first time, the only time.
Curvy for HIm: The Quilter and the QB Page 3